Even Pollyanna has to acknowledge reality, eventually

But that’s good news! It means there’s lots of room for improvement!

Mark Pruner has some Greenwich sales tactics, and they aren’t pretty.

By Mark Pruner [Greenwich Sentinel, May 24th, 2019]

MAY UPDATE

… [L] et’s see how the market is doing so far in May. On the inventory side we are seeing an increase in inventory with 731 single family home listings. This is up 6.4% from last year’s 687 listings on June 2, 2018, the closest 2018 date I have data for. Our inventory is also up 38 listings from the end of last month.

On the sales and contracts side, we continue to be slower than last year. So far in May we have had 36 sales compared to 53 sales last year and our 10-year average of May sales is 57 houses. Let’s hope we finish with a spurt of sales in the rest of May. Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to happen as we have 110 contracts, which is up 9 contracts from the beginning of the month, but down from the 132 contracts we had at the end of May 2018. 

The accumulation of slower sales each month starting in February does have a cumulative effect. Through May 21 we have 145 sales. As of June 2nd last year we had 206. If we add in 10 more sales for the remainder of May we will be at 155 which would be down 51 sales or 25% from last year’s sales. 

April 2019 Greenwich Neighborhoods Report

So where are the sales differences by neighborhood for the months we have completed so far. First the good news, Old Greenwich seems to be humming along. We are up 4 sales over last year with 23 sales for a total value of $58 million and an average of 160 days on market. Usually, Old Greenwich and Riverside track pretty closely, for much of the post-recession years, Old Greenwich, particularly south of the village was the hottest area, then the last couple of years Riverside’s numbers have been a little better, but not this year. 

Inventory in Riverside is up a little from 78 listings last year to 83 listings this year. At the same time sales are down from 24 sales YTD in 2018 to 11 sales this year. The result is that we were looking at 30 months of supply in Riverside, a surprising number for what has been our hottest market the last couple of years. 

….

Folks in backcountry have actually seen listings drop this year as they have 109 listings down 4 from last year. To make things even a little better for us folks north of the Parkway, we have 11 sales compared to 10 last year. Part of this is that our listings over $6.5 million, half of which are in backcountry, are actually a little down from last year. The result of this is that backcountry is looking at 39.6 months of supply, still the most in Greenwich, but Riverside is second at 30.2 months of supply. 

….

Overall, we are also seeing a drop in the sales price/square foot in most areas, which you would expect to see with somewhat more inventory and reduced sales. Our sales price to original list price ratio is also down with Glenville and Cos Cob seeing the biggest drop in this indicator of supply and demand. 

These market changes have now been going on for three months, it is not just a curious blip, it’s a matter for concern as it is affecting most areas of the town and most price points. This is at a time where the economy, the stock market and employment are doing well ….

Sales are slow in Westchester, but why are sales slow in Greenwich? This seems to be a Connecticut problem and it needs to be solved by our legislators in Hartford doing so would strengthen our housing market and would be good for everyone.