Luxury markets in the affluent town of Greenwich, Connecticut, gained traction in the fourth quarter of 2017, registering more sales at higher prices compared to a year ago, according to a Douglas Elliman report released Thursday.
There were 19 luxury condos and single-family homes—comprising the top 10% of sales in the market—traded during the fourth quarter, 18.8% more than the same period of 2016. The average sales price of those homes reached $8.92 million, a 68.7% price increase year-over-year, according to the report.
Median sales prices of luxury segment also rose 41.7% year-over-year to $6.46 million. The least pricey home in this category sold for $4.65 million, 22.8% higher than last year’s threshold of $3.79 million, reflecting that larger and pricer homes were sold in the final quarter of 2017, compared to the same period in 2016.
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The market strength was largely due to sellers’ concessions, according to Jonathan Miller, chief executive of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel and author of the Douglas Elliman report.
"Sellers are more in sync with current market conditions than they were a few years ago," he said. "By discounting their ‘aspirational prices,’ they are actually selling."
Listing discounts, the discounts of the sales price from last listing price, was 13.5% in the fourth quarter, more than double what it was in the final three months of 2016.
Meanwhile, the 19 luxury sales lingered on the market for an average 310 days, compared to 164 days in the fourth quarter of 2016. "It seems that old listings were cleared, " Mr. Miller said.
A lot of overpriced listings that didn’t sell just exited from the market, according to Mr. Miller. There were 126 luxury homes available for sale in the fourth quarter, down from 204 recorded in the same period of 2016.
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As a result, the absorption rate, the time it takes to sell listing inventory at the current moving pace, fell to 19.9 months in the fourth quarter, from 2016’s 38.3 months.
In the general market, median sales prices of single-family homes in Greenwich stood at $1.8 million at the end of 2017, increasing 13.4% from a year ago. The number of transactions in this sector rose 19.3% year-over-year to 136.
"Sales in Greenwich were noticeably stronger than they had been in the past, with heavy volume and the fastest-paced market in 12 years," said Scott Durkin, president and chief operating officer of Douglas Elliman.