I ran into an old friend last evening at Boom Boom's in Camillus. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it. After laughing that the last time I'd seen him was there, he asked how the market was doing in Skaneateles. His house had been listed by another company and hadn't sold, so he was probing for answers. I referred him to my blog - maybe he's reading it now!
I enjoy pulling together the statistics, because then I have them on my tongue. Often when I know I'm going into a listing appointment where I'll be asked pertinent questions I gear my blog towards the answers that week, thus making it possible to do two things at once. Life is short - multi-purpose researching saves time.
So I sit here tonight in the office with the door wide open to the setting sun, people walking by with ice cream cones, kids calling out to each other, cars as always clogging the streets, and look forward to writing the update. The research has been done and proved illuminating. Plus, there's good news for the market.
Currently there are 143 active listings of single family residences listed in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service. Four new ones came on this past week. A home that was a lot in the town just a few years ago is on the market for under $300,000. A small home, also in the town but close enough to walk to the village appeared in the mid-$100,000 range. An agent finally landed a FSBO (for sale by owner) and listed waterfront over one million dollars. There's also waterfront that's a re-list, with a 10% reduction in price.
Nothing new sold this week - still about 12 properties marked contingent or pending.
But closed - yes! There are now 41 closed properties year-to-date! I will do my update in the next couple days, letting you know what they closed for. The two that finished the list were both village homes. One closed around $400,000 with very little reduction in its original list price. The other was on the market (and off a bit) for almost three years and finally closed slightly under 20% of its original price. The world changed a lot in the past three years -
Every week I am mesmerized by the "most expensive homes sold in Onondaga County this week" box in the Post Standard's Sunday real estate section. The prices do not seem that high to me - but then, I've been dealing in Skaneateles prices. So I thought I'd take a look:
Skaneateles' most expensive home so far (through the MLS - I know of another soon to close in a private deal that beats it): 1.7 million
Camillus has only two homes over $300,000 this year, the highest being $362,000.
Onondaga has 4, with their highest closed home being $490,000, new construction - one presumes with all the bells and whistles!
Marcellus has a home for $390,000 - much reduced over many years and the only one closing over $300,000.
For those of you who follow it, last year-to-date there were only 21 closed homes in Skaneateles. Yuck! In 2007 there were 46, in 2006 there were 54, and in 2005 there were 41 - same as this year. Yes, I do think the market is back to normal - except that I bet the average price of a house in 2009 is far greater than the price in 2005 - but that's another day. Right now I want to get the salmon at Doug's, a quiet dinner at home eating on the deck in the sunshine, and a pleasant evening celebrating Alex's birthday - from afar. (He's eating at the Mesa Grill!)
