First Look at December

There's been a lot of speculation among visitors to this blog about how the December sales numbers for Sullivan County will look. Regular visitors to this site, and readers of my monthly Current Market Conditions report know that I usually look at 3 month, rather than single month, data because of the small sample size for single month sales. But December 2008 is the first month where almost all of the sales activity (offers and contracts) occurred after the mid-September onset of the economic meltdown. October and November sales, in comparison, included a substantial number negotiated prior to mid-September.

Single Family Home Sales Reported in the Sullivan County MLS
Month	Closed Sales	Average Sales Price	Median Sales Price
Dec 2008	31	$162.812	$149,000
Dec 2007	42	$191,609	$176,775
Dec 2006	51	$218,847	$195,000

The Dec. 2008 sales data from the Sullivan MLS is preliminary. There may have been some sales closed in the last few days of Dec. that are to still be reported, which will likely add a couple of sales to the tally.

Comments

[Farooz]

I think you'll find that the median in Sullivan is now closer to $135,000 to 140,000 Mal if you were to use the November and December 2008 figures.

And - these were recent transactions. Meaning, that these deals had contracts signed from late August through late September 2008. Since there is usually a two to three month lagtime from the signing of a contract to a closing transaction for financing, survey, appraisal, etc.

In late September of this year, as you mention, the stock market collapsed more than 25% in less than three weeks, after being down 20% - the nenchmarks (DJI, SP and NAS) are currently down YTD of 40% - 45%.

Knowing that there is a two to three month lag in the pipeline, my guess is that you will see the median drop further for the January 2009 numbers to about $125,000 to 130,000 which will reflect the negativity that has run rampant since the fourth quarter of 2008.

As far as your comments as to why realtors take on listings with inflated offering prices, it really does no service to those that they are supposed to represent namely - the client / seller.

Hopefully, Dave will begin to use a two month median cycle as opposed to three months since much has changed and will continue to contract as we go into 2009.

Thank you Mal.

Officer

Posted by: Officer | December 29, 2008 at 01:16 PM

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$149,000 is now the median in Sullivan County for December 2008?

Well...that poster wasn't that far off.

That's a decline of 23.5% since December 2006 using your figures (or the MLS) Dave.

If it's 149k now...my wager is 132 - 140k for the median sold price by in the first quarter of '09.

Incredible that the Hellman's who bought and gutted their farmhouse at the height of the market... and then spent half a million in it!

I bet the wish they accepted that first offering price and be done with it.

Happy New Year Dave.

Farooz

[mal]

Not far off? He was correcting me for quoting $150k as the median (I was simply quoting David's summary). He also predicted $125k-130k for the Jan 09 median, which would represent a spectacular single month drop. Let's see if that happens.

[mr Hebron]

WOW 2009 will be miserable for the atskills region.
It's bad enough for the Metro area, just imagine upstate!