Housing sales explode post-pandemic

The housing market appears to be booming in New York, even as the coronavirus pandemic continues through some of its — hopefully — last gasps.

Demand remains high against lower inventory, creating what could likely become a seller’s market with statewide median sales prices jumping more than 29 percent over last year to $357,000, according to the New York State Association of Realtors.

Yet, those increases haven’t quite been felt locally in the Bronx, where median sales dipped year-over-year in May by 1 percent to $3654,900.

Statewide, the number of available homes dropped nearly 19 percent — not far off the same pace already set in the Bronx. That’s been helped by a jump in closed sales locally — from 58 in May 2020 to 145. Statewide, those figures have nearly doubled to 15,775.

But what does this say about New York’s housing market? Not a lot. These numbers are set in two entirely different environments — one where the public health crisis shut nearly everything down, and the other where life is simply trying to normalize again.

Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, predicted late last year that all the variables are in place for a robust housing market — not just in 2021, but in 2022 as well.

“It is an understatement to say the year 220 has been filled with challenges and full of surprises,” Yun said, in a release last December. “Yet one astonishing development has been the hot housing market as consumers eyed record-low mortgage rates and reconsidered what a home should be in a new economy with flexible work-from-home schedules.”

In fact, he predicted median sales prices nationwide would climb 8 percent this year, and nearly 6 percent more in 2022.

When it comes to the greater Riverdale market, more homes are hitting the market — but how long they actually remain available is dropping.

More than 180 listings were recorded in the area last spring, according to the Elliman Report, compared to nearly 140 a year ago. But while the average listing remains on the market for a little more than four months right now, it’s still nearly two weeks less than what it was at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sales prices are jumping as well, growing 4 percent over last year to an average of just over $472,000.