Staten Island Home sales soar to 2 year high. With 290 home sales last month on Staten Island, November 2009 records the highest sales total in nearly 2 years.  The sales volume jump is 50% higher than in November 2008, when there were just 196 home sales. Median home price drops to 360,000 for the month, but falls within yearly average range.

With the prior first time homebuyer tax credit set to expire at the end of last month, November’s sales numbers appear to be serious evidence the credit provided the thrust behind Staten Island’s home sales surge. November also saw a little over a 3.5% gain in volume sales from last month when 280 homes were sold. Overall, November capped off a 5 month run of positive real estate numbers on Staten Island.

While sales volumes are higher in November, the median sales price of $360,000 is down from this year’s (YTD) year to date average of $370,000. That essentially puts the median sales price to where it was at the tail end of 2004/beginning of 2005. Consequently, while this news is not great for sellers, the significant bleeding in home values that took place last year at this time has abated. It’s important to note, that different price segments are faring better than others, especially as you move up in price scale.
 
Other numbers of note:

Ask to sell prices of homes that did sell on Staten Island last month has remained relatively steady at 93.58 percent of list price. Ask to sell prices had seen its low point back in March of this year when it stood at 92.9 %.
 
Month’s inventory stands at 9.58 the lowest since June, 2006. The number stood at 18.68 in January of this year. This was the sharpest decline in the month’s inventory number in a single year, since MLS started tracking data. This has been one of the strongest fundamental signs the Staten Island real estate market has improved.
It took an average of 138 days on the market for a home to sell, of those that did sell. The number of days on the market has seen little change since August of this year, after 6 straight months of decline. The (YTD) year to date high was back in January where it took 156 days.  This months number was also below the overall (YTD) year to date average of 142 days.
 
What’s next for our real estate market?

Interest rates.

 If there is an improvement in job numbers it will likely be a precursor for higher interest rates, which was evident the last time job numbers were announced. The last reported unemployment tally was at 10%; down two tenths of a percent from the prior month.
 
Will this year beat last year’s sales totals?

After an absolute horrendous start to 2009, will this years 2nd half make up the difference? These are a couple of questions, and as of this moment it looks too close to call. Stay tuned we’ll have that answer next month.
 
(Note: The data is comprised of Staten Island MLS YTD data of one and two family home sales. Information is subject to error)