Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! We are buried here under about 40 inches of snow and I've been enjoying it from afar. Bob has been out skiing, Boo runs because if he stops it will be over his head, and Koko finds places on the deck to pee. I've heard from my cousin in Guam when she saw Brian Williams extolling the woes of Syracuse, and learned that our beautiful landscape reminds people of Denver. Lisa in the office describes it as being in a snow globe and has learned the joys of shoveling. And houses have sold and closed in the past week!
There are currently 119 active listings in the Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service, of which 34 are in the village. Only two "new" ones came on, both re-lists with substantial reductions in price (around 10%). We are getting into that time of year when people do not want to hold onto homes, so what seemed so promising in July is now discounted in December.
There are no new houses marked contingent or under contract and do not show. There is one new pending house, the foreclosure on the lake which was scooped up. It was listed originally with acreage for well over a million, and then more recently about 200K above the current list price. Time to let it go, and it went.
The big news, the good news, is that 5 properties have closed. One is a small house that sold basically at its low $100,000 range list price. Another that will probably be torn down came in at 60% of the original price. New construction in the village stayed in the mid-$400,000s, while a country home with acreage closed within 10% of its original price. A beauty on the lake ended up within striking distance of its multi-million dollar list price!
We now have 68 closed properties for the year, a mark that while less than we all would like is still respectable. There are so many other places in this country where homes are crumbling for lack of ownership, where banks hang on to the foreclosures so as not to flood the market with them. We are lucky - and that luck was paid for by keeping the prices reasonable. Who knows - maybe the higher taxes which keep the prices down served a purpose after all?
