The Real Estate Report
with Robert Ranney
With July gone under a veil of fog, summer is half over and August is upon us. As for the real estate market, can we gleam anything useful from market statistics so far for 2007? Let's take a look.

For the first seven months of 2007, there have been 222 total transactions worth a total of approximately $382 million. In the first seven months of 2006 there were 287 total transactions worth approximately $551 million. The number of transactions (all sales) is down about 23 percent from 2006 and the total dollar volume of those transactions is down about 31 percent from 2006.

Both the average home sale and the median home sale are still declining from the previous year. Although, the median lot sale is actually above (about 17 percent) what it was last year, after showing declines even just last month. The average sale price for all sales combined (home, land, condos etc) is down about 11 percent from 2006.

Through July 2007, there have been a total of 30 vacant lot sales with an average sale price of $1,926,000 (there were 59 vacant lot sales in all of 2006, with an average sale price of $2,311,000). The number of lot sales is about even with 2006, with the average lot sale price down about 17 percent from 2006, but the median sale price actually up about 17 percent.

Often, commercial sales, or the lack thereof, can be a telling statistic about the state of the market. Many commercial sales suggest a healthy market. As of the end of July 2007, there have been only 2 commercial sales so far in 2007. There were 9 altogether in 2006.

Another telling statistic is the number of building permits issued. So far in 2007 there have been 90 single-family building permits issued. If this pace continues, 2007 will be one of the slowest building permit years since 2002.

Of all the real estate changing hands on Nantucket so far in 2007, 72 percent of all sales (houses, land, condos, timeshares, etc) were over $1,000,000. With prices still holding firm at the upper end of the market, 52 percent of all sales were over $2,000,000, while about 6-to-7 percent of all sales sold for under $1,000,000. These percentages are about what they were in 2006, providing evidence that generally speaking, prices have not really declined yet.

According to Nantucket's versions of multiple property listing services, there are approximately 550 listings of properties for sale (houses, condos, vacant lots, etc). Prices range from $225,000 for a condo-unit near the airport, to $19,995,000 for a waterfront property in Squam. The number of listings has been relatively steady over the past few months, and yes, many asking prices have been coming down. The average percentage of sale price versus listing price now stands at about 90 percent. About 10 percent of the active listings have either offers to purchase or are currently under an agreement to sell.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the Pending Home Sales Index jumped 5 percent from May to June, the biggest one month increase since March 2004. Lawrence Yun, NAR senior economist, says it's encouraging that the increase occurred in all four regions of the United States. "However, it is too early to say if home sales have already passed bottom," he says. "Still, major declines in home sales are likely to have occurred already and further declines, if any, are likely to be modest given the accumulating pent-up demand." The index is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed, but the transaction has not closed.

So far, 2007 seems to be a stabilizing or "leveling off" year. After two billion dollar sales years in a row (2004 and 2005) and then a slower 2006, 2007 appears to be continuing the cooling trend. A rebound in market appreciation is difficult to predict. Past trends indicate that over the long term, Nantucket real estate will continue to appreciate, despite periodic

flat periods. Stay tuned. I

A student of the current real estate market, and a licensed real estate salesperson since 1987, Ranney has been performing real estate appraisals with Denby Real Estate, Inc. since 1996, as a field appraiser, construction inspector for numerous financial institutions, market statistician, Realtor, and leading researcher and data collector for "denby.com."