Condo Sales in Greenwich are Looking Good in 2023 - 06/09/2023

The last three years have lit a fire under the condo market. Sales are up from 159 sales in 2019 to 215 sales last year. Condo sales set an all-time high in 2021 with 274 sales. So far through May we have had 82 sales, which if you annualized that number would 197 sales for the year, which is exactly our average number of condo sales over the last 23 years.

Average sales in 2023 don’t sound that spectacular, until you look at the other numbers for the market. Our price per square foot went from $475/sf in 2019 ¬to $616/sf in 2022 or an increase of 29.7% in three years. So far this year, the price per square foot is even higher at $684/sf or a further increase of 11% over last year.

 Our sales started to pick up in 2020 and even more so in 2021, particularly in the second half of that year. In 2021 condos sales set our all-time high of 274 Greenwich condo sales in one year.

Our sales price to original list price ratio has also taken off in that same period. For the years from 2013 to 2020, our average sales price to original list price was right around 93%. Then in 2021 it ticked up to 95.6% and went almost to full list price in 2022 at 99.3%. This year has dropped back a smidgen to 97.5%, but don’t let that drop fool you. That is still the second highest SP/OLP ratio that we have ever had.

Curiously, our average condo size has dropped over the last the last three years. Average condo size peaked at 2,025 s.f. in 2017. It then slowly drifted down, with the exception of 2020, when people wanted bigger units as Covid got underway. The last two years we’ve seen significant drops in the average condo size. We were down 52 s.f. in 2022 and so far, this year the average condo sold is 196 s.f. smaller than last year at only 1,687 s.f. This is down 338 s.f. from that 2017 peak.

It’s possible that developers are making condos smaller, but the number of new condos each year is small and doesn’t influence condo size much. What’s most likely happening is that people with larger, luxury condos are hanging on to them longer and people who are priced out of the single-family home market are buying condos. In 2018, we had 36 condos listed over $2 million dollars and right now we only have 11 condos, and that’s even with the significant appreciation we have had in the last five years pushing more condos over $2 million.

Our present increase in sales, though less so at the high-end, pushed total condo and co-op sales volume to $288 million dollars in 2021. In 2022, we dropped back to $237 million, which is still the second highest on record at a time when sales were constrained by low inventory. So far this year, we have had. $98 million of condos sales, which annualized would come out to be essentially the same as last year. If Days on market has also dropped a lot from 2019 to this year. In 2019, our last pre-Covid year, condos sat on the market for almost half a year before selling after an average of 176 days on market. The days on market number was essentially unchanged in 2020, as some long-term listings sold keeping the average DOM at a high level. Townhouses and garden style condos, like Lyons Farm, did well in the first part of 2020 as people wanted space and social distancing. By 2022, we had sold off many of our long-term listings. As a result, days on market dropped from 176 days on market in 2021 to 144 days DOM in 2022.

Back in 2018, we had 139 condos on the market and our DOM was 184. This compares to May of this year when we only had 38 condo listings on the market and sold condos were only on the market for an average of 66 days on market, our lowest ever.

This year we didn’t really have a spring surge of listings in our condo market and our June inventory is actually lower now than it was at the beginning of the year. This we only have 38 condos for sale as opposed to 41 at the beginning of the year at all prices. In 2021, we had 53 listings under $1 million, now we only have 18 listings. As with our single-family home market, if we had more inventory, we would have more sales.

trends continue, this year will be the third highest total condos sales volume and you’d only need $4 million more to displace last year as the second highest year.

Much like our single-family home market, everything below $2 million sells quickly, if it is in good shape. Below $1.5 million we have had 68 sales in the first five months of 2023, while we now have only 22 listings below $1.5 million. This results in an average months of supply of only 1.7 months, which is the same months of supply as we have single family homes under $1.5 million. In our single-family home market, however, we have no listings under $800,000, while in our condo market we have 13 condos for sale.

Condos provide a great place for people that really want to live in Greenwich at more reasonable prices.