Home sales rise as hot Manhattan market spills into Lower Hudson Valley

Written by Ernie Garcia

Homeowners trying to sell their properties had better success this summer, though they got less money than a year earlier. 

Westchester County enjoyed a 9 percent increase in home sales in the third quarter of 2011 compared with the same period last year, while sales rose 9.8 percent in Putnam and 7 percent in Rockland counties. The Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors and Greater Hudson Valley Multiple Listing Service reported that 1,804 single-family homes were sold in the three-county region from July 1 to Sept. 30, up 8.8 percent from the same 2010 period. 

Despite the higher sales numbers, the median home price in Westchester was off 6 percent to $684,005 and 2 percent to $418,000 in Rockland in the third quarter compared with the year-ago period, while the median sales price remained stable in Putnam at $330,000 versus last year.

Real estate analysts credit the higher sales to reasons including record-low mortgage interest rates, skyrocketing prices in Manhattan pushing more New Yorkers to consider the northern suburbs and local unemployment rates lower than statewide and national figures.
"Manhattan is very hot. That's having a pretty strong impact on Westchester County," said Mike Graessle, an associate broker at Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty in White Plains and president of the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors. "As their prices go up, ours start looking more attractive. People are starting to make the move to Westchester as a cost savings."
Graessle also noted that the Putnam-Rockland-Westchester region had a 6.5 percent unemployment rate in August, compared with a statewide rate of 7.7 percent and a 9.1 percent rate nationally, according to state Department of Labor statistics. He said there are many buying opportunities for people who are employed and have confidence in their job security.
There are also several factors for the lower sales prices, said Jerry Lott, Rockland County Board of Realtors president-elect. He cited a large inventory of homes sitting on the market for a long time, more realistic pricing of houses, higher property taxes, tighter lending requirements by banks and private-sector job losses.
"Lederle labs laying off (nearly 2,000) people has a huge impact on the housing market," said Lott, referring to the Pearl River pharmaceutical plant now owned by Pfizer that is ending manufacturing there and cutting two-thirds of its staff by 2014.
Despite continuing struggles in the national economy, Graessle said there are signs for optimism in the latest numbers. He noted that though the year-to-date sales of single-family homes in Westchester were down from the same period in 2010, they were higher than in 2009, when the Great Recession officially ended.
"I sense, from what I'm seeing with buyers and sellers, that we've bottomed out," Graessle said.