What did the 2010 Real Estate Market look like?

At the end of each year, around the same time I’m working on those tedious tax preparations, I compile all the real estate sales data from Newport County and the bordering towns so that I can see the last year’s effect on the local market.

I had a hunch that 2010 would be different from its predecessors, and it turned out I was right.  When I took a look at the pages of analyses coming off my printer, I noticed a number of significant changes on Aquidneck Island in the last year.  According to the MLS records for all types of property being sold, both average and median sale prices are up slightly over last year.  The number of properties sold has inched up as well.  When I look at number of properties sold each year, it’s clear that the low point occurred in 2008, but the low price point seems to have occurred in 2009, which makes sense.  Sellers lower their prices after their property hasn’t received significant activity in a while.

There was also a change in the type of property that sold.  Single-family homes, which have always been our best seller, dropped a bit from 365 sales in 2009 to 360 sales in 2010.  At the same time, the number of condominium sales, which has slipped severely since its high in 2003, has risen almost 25% over last year’s number and is almost back to 2007 levels.  Multifamily homes, a very popular commodity in 2009, dropped 13 properties this last year

While any analysis or chart is just a snapshot of past reality up to a certain date, it is fun to imagine that it can give us insights into the future of the market.  What it can do is show us where we have been and what current market looks like.

I have additional graphs, which divide the market into price ranges: properties sold below $400k, in the $400k to $1 million range, and above $1 million.  These are the multicolor area charts below.  From the chart, “Aquidneck Island Number of Sales Distributed by Price”, it is clear that the number sold under $400k has dropped, while the middle range has taken up the slack.  An interesting view of the market is the comparison of this chart with the chart that follows showing the total dollars spent on the purchases in each category of home: the “Aquidneck Island Sales Dollar Distribution by Price.” In this chart, you can see that buyers in the middle and high categories spent almost the same amount of total dollars on their purchases and were only exceeded a little by the total dollars spent on properties sold for under $400,000.

To sum things up, we reached a marked sales bottom in 2008 and have moved up since then and we may have reached our low price point in 2009.  The middle part of the market that really took a hit in 2008 has reentered the game in the last year.  Condominiums are being recognized as a great value due to the pricing pressure they have felt in last couple of years, and sales reflect that. 

All in all, I suspect that 2010 will continue this trend.  In light of these indicated price increases (however slight), I would say that if you are thinking of buying a new home or investment property don’t wait!