Skaneateles Real Estate - The Weekly Update

We saw Hugo, the film in 3-D, last week.  I doubt a film's setting was ever so powerful for me.  Maybe it was the beginning of the real estate bug, but when I was younger I would attend plays and sketch out the sets.  My playbills contained drawings, all the way back to Stratford and probably before.  Now that 3-D has "come into the picture," as it were, my interest is even more pronounced.  If I do leave for France, it will be that film that sent me packing. 

But back to the prosaic, and a cold drizzly day in Central New York.  When the snow comes it will be welcome.  There are currently only 115 active listings in the single family homes Skaneateles area of the multiple listing service.  Of these, 32 are in the village, 28 are waterfront, and a new subset of waterfront in the village has two homes.  One actually new listing (at least not for a long while) came on - a little home listed around $100,000.  Two others that have "been out there" in various forms also re-appeared with lower prices.

The contingency category shows three new "sales."  (Not closed until they are CLOSED!)  A marvelous waterfront property, new construction in the village, and a home I swore would sell last summer but only did now (in the village also) were marked as contingent.  I am sure everyone is thrilled - buyers, sellers, agents...

There was also movement in the "under contract, do not show" category.  A home that has been on the market for a bit in the village now shows a "U" in the listings, as does a "to-be-built" in the town. 

We also have a newly closed house in the town, purchased rapidly and closed within about 5% of its list price.  That brings to 62 the actual number of sold single family homes this year.

Now, our dear friend of the blog, JT, has raised the "median" versus "mean" discussion again.  The Post-Standard publishes on occasion the average (mean) prices of homes in the individual towns.  Skaneateles is once again in the mid-$400,000 range, but that is misleading, she says, and I agree.  We had a HUGE sale of waterfront-village property a few months back and that has skewed the numbers tremendously.  The median list price of SOLD homes is still hovering around the $300,000 level - which means that there were an equal number of homes listed above the price as well as below the price.  A look at the actual sales prices of these homes shows the same approximately.   The current median price of active homes is $400,000 - certainly a discrepancy between reality and the active market price.  Thanks, JT!

                                                      Closed for $3,000,000 earlier this year.