Currently there are 160 active single family residence listings in the Skaneateles area in the multiple listing service. This past week 7 new homes came on the market. Two of these are re-lists, two others are re-configurations of old listings (I'll explain later), and the other three are brand new (or at least not having sold in the past 7 or so years that the ML covers.)
About the reconfigurations: these are new construction homes that initially were marketed as million dollar plus homes. They are now being sold as 600K homes - certainly smaller, less magestic, fewer bells and whistles. The market just isn't there. Butters Farm a few years ago learned that lesson also. People simply do not pay for that type of home not on the water or not historic - at least not yet in Skaneateles.
Three homes closed this week! Hooray! At this rate we will exhaust our backlog in about a year. There are now 23 closings - last year at this time there were 50.
I just spoke with a couple financial types - an analyst and a tax accountant. The prediction is that the turn-around is almost here. "We are 80% through it," was one take. So while Syracuse is a thriving market, Skaneateles more nearly reflects the rest of the country - except that we rarely have foreclosures. Only a couple of the active listings are bank-owned - hardly worth mentioning!
Back to the facts. A huge, gorgeous waterfront home was marked "K" this week. It had been listed several times and now the price is right and it was sold. Oh - and wait! - one of the new listings - a recently built village home - came on the market and was immediately sold, so that's now marked "K."
I predict that two months from now we will be writing offers and scrambling to beat deals. It will happen. So if you are reading this and like a home out there - buy it now! Even if you have to write a contingency contract. Just do it!
