Buyers bide their time, but eventually pay close to sellers' asking prices

By Tommy Hallissey

Janet Knight wasn't about to settle. She set an asking price for her one-bedroom co-op in the Oxford House on Johnson Avenue, and she wasn't going to budge. She had to wait nine months before she got an offer, but her patience was rewarded when her home was recently scooped up for a premium that will enable her to move up to a Junior-4 in Central Riverdale.

For sellers like Ms. Knight, the average time on the Riverdale real estate market has risen sharply in the last two years, jumping 98 percent - from 57 days to 113 days - according to statistics of house, condo and co-op sales maintained and analyzed by The Riverdale Press.

The housing market (pdf)

"The cycle now takes five or six months to sell," said Fred Levy, a broker with Halstead, which has 20 agents in Riverdale. "A year ago it was a shorter cycle."

In the three neighborhoods with the most transactions, Central Riverdale, North Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil, time on the market skyrocketed from 2005 to 2007. In Spuyten Duyvil, the average time on the market jumped 153 percent. Central Riverdale's percentage increased a little more than 100 percent, while North Riverdale rose a little less than 80 percent. Since there were so few sales in Fieldston and the Estate Area, it wouldn't be fair to make comparisons.

"Each case is individual, sometimes we have sellers with a price stuck in their head and they are intransigent," said Vivian Oleen, a broker with Sopher Realty. "When something is pressing on the seller then they become very reasonable."

The time a property was on the market hit record lows in 2005 at the peak of the national housing bubble. Recently, sellers needed the most patience in Spuyten Duyvil, where homes sat on the market for 129 days in 2007. In North Riverdale, the hottest year for sales was 2004, when homes were snapped up within an average of 49 days.