As I said yesterday when I put up the numbers for residential real estate (which you should check if you didn't see it yet), here are the land sales for the same five year period. These are for properties in the four counties (Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland) and for the timeframe January 1 through August 31.
Land sales, 4 counties, January 1 through August 31
| |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
Active |
| # sold |
85 |
81 |
69 |
94 |
82 |
1001 |
| $ sold (millions) |
8.9 |
6.4 |
6.9 |
11.9 |
8.3 |
148.0 |
| Median sales price |
37,500 |
40,000 |
64,950 |
100,250 |
52,000 |
74,500 |
| Median days on market |
178 |
148 |
264 |
177 |
268 |
413 |
As we've seen all along, this is not an improving market--land is not selling well. This is the portion of our local real estate market that seems to move in one direction one year and then another the next and then back again and back again. Makes it hard to make any projections. 2014 was the best year of lot sales. The median sales price in 2015 isn't as low this year as in 2011 and 2012 (but is almost half of what it was in 2014). The median days on market in 2015 is the greatest number for the five years reviewed. Inventory, at over 1000 lots with 82 lots sold to date, is a really scary number if you need to sell a lot and soon.
Waterfront Land sales, 4 counties, January 1 through August 31
| |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
Active |
| # sold |
25 |
29 |
32 |
44 |
31 |
449 |
| $ sold (millions) |
4.5 |
3.8 |
5.1 |
8.7 |
4.9 |
115.1 |
| Median sales price |
130,000 |
118,000 |
147,000 |
187,000 |
125,000 |
175,000 |
| Median days on market |
294 |
224 |
417.5 |
226 |
275 |
367 |
Now we look at waterfront lot sales. This isn't terribly different from the overall sales data. Fewer sales this year than last. Median sales price this year considerably below 2014's. Signficant days on market for sales this year although not terrible if you look at all five years....Active listings, well with a little more than 14 times the number of actives as the number of solds....that pretty much tells it all. With the median days on market for the actives at over a year....that tells about the amount of inventory that has been on the market and for a long time. Wish I could paint a rosy picture. Wish I could say that land is picking up, but it isn't. It makes perfect sense that we are perhaps selling off the residential inventory and getting closer to healthy there in the residential part of our market....once enough of that is sold off and there aren't the great deals to be had....well then purchasing land will make more sense to more people.
