Larchmont housing market strength
One place that seems to be holding up better than most is
Larchmont. There, the number of sales for the first 10
months so far this year has exceeded the corresponding
period in 2005, with 157 sales this year, up from 147 a
year earlier, said Debbie Doern, manager of Century 21
Residential Brokerage. In addition, the median sales price
during the period was slightly more than $1.1 million, up
from $999,000 a year earlier.
Ms. Hellman at Merritt Associates attributed the village’s
relative resistance to a distinctive combination of assets:
an architecturally varied and well-maintained housing
stock from the 1920s and 1930s; a thriving downtown
within walking distance of almost anywhere else in the
village; a location next to Long Island Sound; and proximity
to Manhattan.
Farther north, on the Village Green in Bedford, Missy Renwick,
the broker-owner of Renwick & Winterling, a family-owned real
estate agency, reported that some towns — among them Pound
Ridge, Armonk and Bedford — have so far remained relatively
unscathed.
“Gosh, everybody is saying the market is awful,” Ms. Renwick
said, “but we just had the best October in a long time, with a
$17 million sale, two $7 million sales and some for $5 million.
At worst, we have a few low bidders out there looking at
the leftovers.”
In one segment of Westchester’s market, that of new luxury
condominium sales, the sales picture has been downright
rosy. As Louis R. Cappelli, a Valhalla-based developer,
observed, referring to condos he is building, “there may
be a slowdown in some locations, but we’re certainly not
seeing it in White Plains and New Rochelle.”
Since the sales center opened last month, Mr. Cappelli said,
contracts have been signed for more than a third of the units
at his 44-story Residences at the Ritz-Carlton in White Plains
— where prices range from $750,000 to more than $6 million.
[Via NYT]