On the Home Front 
What’s On and Off the Residential Market

– By Allen Clark and Robin Jovanovich –

Reports of falling house prices, slow-moving properties and growing foreclosures in Westchester and around the country have been grist for the news media mill for months. Just about everywhere, real estate corrections have been occurring. Rye, however, continues to resist the negative trends. The market may not be as feverish as it was a year or two ago, but it is healthy and homes are selling at a good pace.

Residential sales data for the first six months of 2007 shows that 102 homes within the Rye Postal District (which includes City of Rye, Greenhaven and Westchester Country Club) were sold in that period. The average number of days on market was 153 and the average selling price $1,832,348. As the chart below shows, selling prices of residential one-family homes in the Rye City School District area have moved up in recent months to the point that the average price for the 12 months ending June 2007 was $1.74 million.

The total dollar value of Rye homes sold from January through June was $186,899,526. Most of the homes sold within 95% of the listing price.

Currently, there are 105 homes on the market, with an average list price of $2,722,239. Sales of 48 homes are pending, and the average price of those is $2,292,292.

Looking at the broader trend lines (green) in the Westchester-Putnam MLS chart, to right, the average house selling price in Rye has held pretty steady for over a year and a half, not at all the pattern elsewhere in Westchester, New York State or the country at large.

Much more volatile has been the number of sales. As the second chart shows, the number of houses sold since the end of 2004 had steadily fallen until early 2006. While activity has not gone up steadily, the overall trend is pointing up from April of last year, when the 12-month number of houses sold was 138. For the 12 months ending last month, 152 houses were sold. While impossible to plot where sales are going short term, the trend line for the past 15 months has an upward slope.

Statistical information for this article was provided by Marianna Glennon of Houlihan Lawrence, Marilyn Estess of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and Mary Stetson of Stetson Real Estate.

Recent home sales by neighborhood

Playland

Four bedroom, two-bath 1,500 square-foot home built in 1924 sold for $850,000.

Three-bedroom, two-bath 1,250 square-foot home built in 1953 sold for $665,000.

Rye Golf Club

Three-bedroom, two-bath 2,050 square-foot home built in 1949 sold for $785,000.

Milton Point

Five-bedroom, five-bath 3,600 square-foot home built in 1930 sold for $2,825,000.

Hix Park

Four-bedroom, three-bath 2,650 square-foot home built in 1950 sold for $1,130,000.

Four-bedroom, three-bath 2,600 square-foot home built in 2006 sold for $1,765,000.

Rye Beach

Three-bedroom, one-bath 868 square-foot home built in 1920 sold for $440,000.

Three-bedroom, three-bath 2,452 square-foot home built in 1915 sold for $890,000.

Rye High School

Four bedroom, three-bath 3,000 square-foot home built in 1925 sold for $1,655,000.

Glen Oaks

Four-bedroom, three-bath 2,130 square-foot home built in 1963 sold for $840,000.

Three-bedroom, three-bath 1,850 square-foot home built in 1926 sold for $864,000.

Rye Gardens

Three-bedroom, two-bath 1,444 square-foot home built in 1940 sold for $835,000.

Kirby Lane

Six-bedroom, six-bath 7,252 square-foot home built in 1926 sold for $5,210,000.

Greenhaven

Eight-bedroom, eight-bath, 8,614 square-foot home built in 1928 sold for $3,175,000.