Prodigy Real Estate - SI NY Real Estate Blog

May's cool weather wasn't enough to cool Staten Island's consistently warming real estate market. 

It looks as though our assumption was correct. Just like the prior month, the sales for the month of May hit way over the 200 mark—something that, like last April, hasn’t been seen in the same month since 2008, when May had 250 monthly sales. This May surpassed even that number by four, with 254 total sales. This may not seem like much, with an increase of only about 1.6%, but it’s definitely better than May of 2012 and 2011, where we saw 188 and 168 home sales, respectively. As we can see, the monthly sales for May have been on an upward trend since 2011, but just by comparing this past May’s sales with the prior year, we see an increase of over thirty-five percent!

When compared to the prior month of April, we see an increase in monthly real estate sales on Staten Island for May by almost six percent. This also may not be as great of an increase as we saw last month, when the sales increased by about thirty-one percent, but it can mean that the market is heading in a good direction, especially since we can see another upward trend of increasing monthly sales from this past March.

Adding the past twelve months together, we see a total of 2,750 sales, whereas the prior twelve months saw only 2,414 home sales. The increase between the two numbers was by almost fourteen percent, but if we look at the individual numbers alone, we can already see a healthy market. This is shown in ten of the twelve months, which each received over two hundred sales. Contrariwise, only half of that amount saw over two hundred sales in the previous twelve months—from June of 2011 to May of 2012.

If we take a look at the dollar amounts, we see increases in every category. First, let’s take a look at the increases in the average listing and selling prices.

The average listing price for May was $466,466, while the average selling price was $440,836. This means that homebuyers were paying 94.50% of their home’s listed price. We haven’t seen a number this high since November of 2012, but at that time, the average home price was lower, allowing homebuyers to receive less of a discount.

We haven’t seen average listing or home selling prices this high since September of 2012, when the average listing house price was $491,105 and the average selling price was $459,313, but homebuyers were receiving about one percent less of a discount, at 93.52%.

The average listing and selling prices increased not only from the prior month, but also from where they were in 2012 at the same time. From April, the average listing price shot up by about 8.54%, while the average selling price increased by about 9.68%. From May of 2012, the average listing price increased by six percent, and the average selling price increased by about six-and-a-half percent.These factors, in turn, caused the discount given to homebuyers to decrease, as they paid about 1% percent more from April, and about .47% more from last May. If you take a look at the averages over the years, you will see that the average listing and selling prices have been increasing each year since 2010.
These amounts are even higher than the yearly averages, with the average listing price for the past twelve months being $443,749, and the average selling price being $416,641. In turn, the average percentage of a home’s price that homebuyers paid was 93.89% for June of 2012 up until May of 2013.

The number that strikes us as rare, however, is the median sale price, which was $415,000 this past month. This was an increase of over ten percent from the prior month, which was at $375,000. It was also an increase of a little over seven percent from the prior year, when the median sale price was at $387,500.

The median sale price of $415,000 is significant when compared to annual totals, as well. The average for the past twelve months was $385,000, which means that it was almost eight percent higher this May. The average for the past four years was $380,000, showing more than a nine percent increase in May.

In September of 2012, we saw a median sale price of $400,000, getting close to May’s median of $415,000. Nonetheless, we haven’t seen anything higher than $400,000 since July of 2008—almost five years ago! As we can see, the median sale price for May was much higher than we’re accustomed to seeing.

If you want real proof of an improving market, take a look at these numbers:

The number of homes on the market for May was 2,373. While this may be a decrease of over twenty-two percent from the previous year, it was certainly a step up from April, where we saw 2,282 homes on the market. The increase of almost four percent made for a difference of ninety-one homes being placed on the market. It may not seem like a good thing that there are so many more homes currently on the market, but hang on—there’s good news. Just be patient, we’ll get to that part shortly.

The average cumulative days that homes spent on the market was 184 for May, which is a little less than a two percent decrease from April. It’s also almost a three percent decrease from May of 2012. This may just be due to rollover, though.

So with the number of homes on the market being 2,373 and the average cumulative days on the market being 184 days, the number of months it would take to sell the current homes on the market was estimated to be 9.34 months. Looking at this number by itself doesn’t seem like much, but let’s compare it to the past.

This past April, the estimated number of months it would take to sell the homes on the market was estimated at 9.5. Let’s admit—it’s not too spectacular when comparing the two numbers, since it’s only about .16% of a decrease, but let’s look at the month before that. In March, it was estimated to take 12.52 months to sell the homes on the market. That’s over a twenty-five percent decrease between March and May! Then, if you compare it to the annual average for the past twelve months, we see a decrease of over nineteen percent! In this case, a decrease is a good thing.

Now let’s compare that number to May of 2012. At that time, we saw an estimated 16.27 months to sell all of the homes on the market. Putting it side-by-side with the number from this past May, 9.34, we can see a decrease of almost forty-three percent! Now let’s take a look at the past few years.

As reported, the number of months it would take to sell the homes on the market this past April was 9.5—a historic low. This past January, that number was 9.87. Prior to that, though, we had not seen anything below double-digits since June of 2010, and that was because of a tax rebate that was in effect at the time.

The estimation of 9.34 months is a pretty impressive number, and a great indication of where the real estate market may be heading—especially when you take a look at the number of homes that are on the market. With more homes being on the market and a lower estimation of months to sell all of those homes, it certainly looks like we’re making some headway.