The inventory of unsold homes was up in the outer-boroughs in the third quarter of 2006, but sales prices stayed relatively strong compared to a year ago, particularly in Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Brooklyn
The Brooklyn housing market continued its transition from red hot to slightly less so in the three months ended Sept. 30. Prices were up, but so was inventory.
“It’s a much more normal give and take between the buyer and the seller right now,” said Frank Percesepe, who heads the Corcoran Group’s Brooklyn operations. “Last year, [prices] were shooting up like a rocket. But they’re more gradual now.”
The average sales price for a Brooklyn home was $614,000 in the third quarter, up 3.7 percent from $592,000 at mid-year and up 7 percent from the third quarter of 2005, according to Corcoran.
Higher prices — and buyers’ reluctance to pay them — could explain a rise in inventory over the last year. Brooklyn inventory reached 1,662 unsold homes in September, up 15 percent from 1,444 in August and up more than 31 percent from 1,267 last September.
At the same time, sales volume remained strong in the borough, particularly on its western edges closest to Manhattan.
There were 337 home sales in Brooklyn in the third quarter, up 36 percent from the third quarter of 2005, according to Corcoran.
The Bronx
The Bronx has some of the most diverse housing stock in the city — and much of it on the sales market in the third quarter sat there for a longer while than before.
“Inventory is up, way up,” said Joe Hasselt, owner of Hasselt Realty in the borough and vice president for the residential division of the Bronx-Manhattan North Association of Realtors. “You went from having to look for weeks and months for a home to now having 30 [homes] that fit a description at any given moment.”
In July, the average sales price for a Bronx home was a little over $478,000, according to the Realtors’ MLS. That number has held throughout the summer and into the fall, but Hasselt says he expects a dip in prices to hit the Bronx soon. Bad housing news and higher mortgage rates are to blame, he says.
In mid-October, 165 Bronx homes were listed for sale for under $350,000, according to the MLS; 88 were on sale for $400,000 to $450,000; and 49 were going for $350,000 to $400,000. The MLS listed 103 Bronx homes on sale for $450,000 to $500,000.
Queens
Queens continues to run a pricey second to Brooklyn among the outer boroughs. The median home sales price drifted to $509,500 in August, the most recent month from which data was available; that’s a 13 percent increase over August of 2005, and is in keeping with an upward trend in Queens’ prices that started in earnest this year.
The average sales price for a Queens home climbed for the first time ever in January past $500,000, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island. Though it dipped below that threshold in the winter and throughout the spring and summer, the average once again in August climbed above $500,000 to around $510,000.
Unfortunately for sellers and brokers, inventory is also up in Queens.
Anecdotally, brokers report a rise in the number of unsold homes languishing on the market recently. A second-quarter report from brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman put the Queens inventory at 3,416 and the days it takes to sell a home at 79 on average.
Staten Island
Sales volume for every major type of Staten Island housing plunged by double-digit percentages in the third quarter compared to the same period a year ago. Sales of one-family attached houses experienced the steepest drop, falling more than 38 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, according to the Staten Island Board of Realtors.
Sales of one-family detached houses dropped 23.8 percent, and sales of semi-attached houses were down 21.8 percent. Also, condo sales dropped more than 25 percent year-over-year. Only sales of co-ops, a rarity in Staten Island, increased from the third quarter of last year through this year’s third quarter, shooting up 34.6 percent, according to the board of Realtors.
At the same time as the sales plunges, the prices on Staten Island homes ticked upward year over year in the third quarter. But the price increases were much tamer than the sales decreases.
The median price of a one-family attached house was up 3 percent to $345,000 and, for a one-family detached, up 1 percent to $490,000. The condo median was up 7.3 percent to $295,000. The co-op median, too, was up for Staten Island, increasing 11.2 percent to $150,000.