If your life is anything like mine you might be asking where the first half of the year has gone let alone the month. Writing this newsletter each month has been a real mile marker for me.
I've so much new and exciting news to share with you. Here are the highlights this month:
1. We're now the area's exclusive affiliate of Christies Great Estates.
2. We've produced HD videos that are broadcast quality for 3 of our luxury home listings
3. River to Shore Group Score Card: Our closings and activity on our listings continue into the dog days of summer.
4. The Numbers: We analyze our market area at the half way point in 2010.
Page Taft Real Estate is now an exclusive affiliate of Christies Great Estates
Ask any luxury seller and they'll tell you it's a tough market to sell in. We know that Einstein said doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is a definition of insanity. Then it would also be a given that if we continue to do the same thing to market luxury homes and expect buyers to come to the home and make an offer when it hasn't been happening would be crazy. So our astute broker, Karen Stephens, decided to change the game. Page Taft has been a respected name in Real Estate for many, many years. The ethical hard work and track record of great sales in luxury real estate along with great testimonials from agents like us got us easily accepted into the club. We are delighted as our client's are about the news.
Christies auction house in NY is as trusted name as any for luxury items, art, and fine living. They're arbiters of good taste and present some of the world's most valuable collections to the worlds' wealthiest buyers. Now our listings have direct exposure to this clientele.
This new avenue of marketing coupled with our world class photography and marketing will give us an edge to find the pool of buyers all luxury listings compete for today.
I will write more about what's in store as it comes to us.
Broadcast Video Productions for Luxury Listings
While in NYC at the Inman News Real Estate connect conference, I met an extraordinary video production company located in the Hamptons on Long Island. They had a technique and quality I'd not seen for real estate presentations. We just had to try adding this to our marketing mix for another boost to our channel marketing.
We just finished the raw footage last week and each video is being edited into a finished product. We'll share the links to them next month. Stop back in a week or so and you'll find them attached to our listings if you want to see them sooner.
The River to Shore Group Score Card
Although the heat has slowed things down a bit, we continue to close homes in Old Saybrook, Killingworth, and have inked a new deal on a beach home in Point 'O Woods putting us with 2 in the queue waiting to close.
Kevin Geysen, one of our new agents and members has just put on a new condo listing with lake rights in his home town of East Hampton. A rare and spacious 3 bedroom end unit. Check it out at http://www.85NorthMain105.com. This home offers just under 1,250 sf of living space PLUS a 400 sf finished lower level making it live like a single family home without the outside maintenance hassles.
Mark Bombaci is readying a wonderful and historic cape with a separate guest house that could be rented or used for a home office. This Ivoryton gem will be ready for the market soon.
We've had a lot more activity on luxury properties which is a sign that buyers in this price range are starting to emerge again. Activity is not good enough, contracts are. Check our listings in a week or so and you'll see links to the most gorgeous high definition videos that shows our client's homes in grand fashion.
Visit 20BensonLane.com for more on this unique Essex waterfront property.
The Numbers
I'm quite encouraged by the numbers I see for the 1st half of 2010. These results are for single family residences in our 23 town service area along the CT Shoreline and the lower CT River valley that were recorded in the CT Statewide MLS. So let's get to it!
We noted that 1077 closings took place across all price points, a 20.52% increase over the 1st half of 2009 AND 5% over 2008. This is good news considering last year I reported a 20% loss in 2009 when we looked back at 2008!
At the end of the day, the statistics that mean the most to you if you're a seller is the price bracket your home is in. Here are the 1st half stats by bracket. If you want additional information on anything statistical send me an email: mick@pagetaft.com
The luxury sector is still challenged but moving in the right direction. We report 23 closings for the 1st half of 2010 which is a 17.39% increase over 2009 but still a 65% loss when peaking back to 2008. In the peak of the market we closed 60 homes in 2007 in this price range. Sales volume for all price points followed nearly the same percentages.
It appears to be taking longer to sell homes in the majority of towns in our market area. The numbers are showing that Essex homes are taking 170 days on average to sell, followed by Old Saybrook at 146 days, then Niantic at 133. All in all 17 of the 23 towns we track take more than 100 days. Our winners this month are Centerbrook and Ivoryton at about 65 days, East Haven, East Hampton in hot pursuit selling in under 77 days. When I peek at the Average % of listing to sales price it shows that asking prices are slightly higher than they should be in those towns that take longer to sell. For instance Old Saybrook and Essex take a 12% hit off of asking price where Centerbrook and Ivoryton shows their percentage at 2.5%. I'd venture a guess some short sales and REO closings may be distorting the real truth in some towns.
The selling price per square foot is still lower than it was in 2004 when it was $197/sf. For 2010 we're at $178/sf making the listing price per square foot ($232) wishful thinking and just delaying the time it will take to get a signed contract. Back in '04 it was $213/sf which was within reason in my humble opinion.
I'll leave you with our current absorption rate. The absorption rate is essentially the number of months it would take to sell all of the homes currently on the market using the current rate of sales. For homes under $400k we have just 6 months of inventory. After what I told you about the luxury sector, it should not be a surprise to learn that we've got 32 months of inventory on hand. The $400k-800k bracket has performed better this year so we're at 8 months here. The next bracket at $600-800k takes a big jump to 18 months, and $800k to $1m takes a leap to 27 months of inventory. In these categories it's more a beauty contest and a price war than ever. To win here one must be ready to deal below appraised value to win buyers. Those homes in unique and special locations offering waterfront or fantastic views may have less trouble getting what they want.