Here we go! It's the start of something big!
Currently, in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service there are 160 homes active on the market. This number seems to have held steady over the past few weeks, while the number of homes marked contingent or pending has increased slightly.
Of the 6 new homes that have come on the market, 2 are re-lists and 3 are waterfront. Waterfront continues to sell and do very well this year.
There are also 3 properties marked contingent this past week: 1 residential, 1 waterfront, and 1 for the die-hard investor who got a good deal, I think. The price had come down steadily - until it's last listing was about 60 % of the original price.
There are now 30 closed properties this year. The latest is a village property which sold at a reduction of 12% of its original price. Last week I wondered about reducing all homes by 10% to sell them - and I think this is in part a validation of that assumption.
I had a wonderful comment about the update and the trends, with a question concerning the use of the average price as a barometer. (Go back and read the comments - they are well-thought out and informative!) The suggestion was to use or explore at least the median price as possibly more predictive and accurate.
So here we go! This year the median price of the 30 homes that have closed so far is $470,000, certainly less than the average of well over $500,000 that the Post-Standard reports. There has been only 1 multi-million dollar home that has closed and only 3 under the $150,000 mark.
Last year during the same time period there were 65 homes that had closed. The median price - 32 higher and 32 lower - was $318,500. That's a sizeable difference! There were 7 multi-million dollar homes and 8 homes under $150,000. Fascinating, isn't it?
But change is on the way - I know of 3 unreported sales in the Skaneateles area, and I know there are probably a lot more happening behind closed doors. It's time.
