Rockland County Homes and Condos

Rockland County Absorption Rates

How is your town fairing in this crazy real estate market? The best way to assess the market is to take a look at the absorption rates as indicated in the table below. You can also click on each town name to view the current real estate listings for each town.

Town	6 Month Listings Taken	6 Months Listings Sold	Inventory	Sales/Month	Absorption Rate
Airmont	28	26	7	4.3	1.6
Bardonia	7	11	0	1.8	0
Blauvelt	17	19	5	3.1	1.6
Congers	26	24	9	4	2.25
Chestnut Ridge	14	10	3	1.6	1.8
Garnerville	22	17	5	2.8	1.77
Haverstraw	5	9	1	1.5	.67
Monsey	30	18	13	3	4.3
Montebello	17	9	5	1.5	3.3
Nanuet	49	54	6	9	.67
New City	113	111	27	18.5	1.46
Nyack	45	38	22	6.3	3.47
Orangeburg	7	11	2	1.8	1.09
Palisades	9	5	12	.83	14.4
Pearl River	40	47	6	7.8	.77
Piermont	11	8	7	1.33	5.26
Pomona	31	27	11	4.5	2.44
Sloatsburg	12	13	5	2.16	2.3
Spring Valley	43	41	8	6.8	1.17
Stony Point	48	36	15	6	2.5
Suffern	68	65	18	10.83	1.66
Tappan	23	18	10	3	3.33
Thiells	25	23	3	3.83	.78
Tompkins Cove	11	5	4	.08	4.8
Valley Cottage	25	26	4	4.3	.92
West Haverstraw	13	15	3	2.5	1.2
West Nyack	31	27	9	4.5	2

First, what is an absorption rate? An absorption rate in real estate tells us how long it would take to sell of the entire existing inventory in a given market, based on the current rate of sales per month. This is used to measure how healthy a market is, and who has the advantage. Buyer or seller?

6 months is the benchmark. 6 months is the number that represents a healthy, balanced market. If we have more than 6 months of inventory it’s considered a buyer’s market and we will start seeing some reduction in prices, seller concessions or sellers paying some closing costs, engaging in more inspection repair requests. Under 6 months we have a seller’s market. Multiple offers, over asking price offers, appraisal contingency waivers and buyers taking homes as-is just to make sure they don’t lose the property.

To calculate the absorption rate, first we need to find the average amount of sales per month. (Total listings sold over last 6 months divided by 6.) Then we take the current inventory and divide by “Sales/month.”

So let’s start with the numbers from the previous page. Most municipalities in Rockland have an absorption rate less than 2 months. Nanuet currently has .667 which translates to about 3 weeks. In other words, if you are looking at a home for sale in Nanuet today, chances are it will not be available in another 3 weeks.

Look at Bardonia. Bardonia currently has an absorption rate of ZERO since there isn’t even a single home for sale in Bardonia at the time of this report.

We can see that we are still at historically low absorption rate levels. Now you’re probably getting headlines across your browser and news feeds saying home prices are dropping, the market is struggling. And that may be true elsewhere but these calculations here are not opinions.

This is pretty clear cut data that the sellers still have the advantage.

One thing that struck me as odd right off the bat was Piermont and Palisades. How could Piermont, one of the more sought after areas, often with amazing river views, have one of the higher absorption rates in the county?!? I dug deeper into the data to discover that of the 7 homes currently for sale in Piermont, 4 of them are at or above an asking price of $1,000,000. Palisades currently has 13 homes for sale and an astounding 7 of them are asking over $2,000,000. 4 of them are over $4,000,000! We know that the increase in interest rates over the past year has affected the higher price homes more dramatically than lower priced properties. And that is the perfect segue to the next graphic- Absorption rate per price point. In other words, how quickly are homes selling in the 400,000’s, 500,000’s and so on.

Rockland County

absorption rate, is it a good time to buy, is it a good time to sell, Rockland County Real Estate

April 14, 2023

Seller listing tip regarding window A/C units

Rockland County Real Estate home selling tip

We’re coming to my favorite time of year. Summer! Its also the time of year homes without Central Air conditioning start putting in their window a/c units. If you are going to be selling your home this summer, leave the window units out of the front of the house. Consider side window for those hunks of junk.

Homes without central air sell for less than homes with Central AC. Homes also stay on the market longer when they don’t have AC. Over my 15 year career I have worked with many buyers that have told me no central air is a deal breaker.

Now with that said, we don’t want to hide the fact that the home doesn’t have central air. And we are not trying to trick anyone into thinking the home does does stay brisk even on those sweltering ninety degree days. BUT we want to prioritize the first impressions that the buyer will have on the home. The very first impression that a buyer has about a home are the pictures they see online. And the front of the exterior of the home is usually their very first aspect of a home they look at before they even read the description and the specs of the home. If the very first thing buyers see about your home is clunky out of date window units protruding from the front of the house, leaking water down your siding they are going to think differently about the home throughout the rest of their experience viewing your property. Putting your a/c units on the side or back window allows something more favorable about the home to be seen first. Think of a baseball lineup. Teams don’t put their worst hitters up first. They stick them down at the bottom of the lineup where by time they get to hit in the second or third inning the game may have already taken shape. And that’s what we want to do. We want to showcase your home’s positive aspects first. We want to build up some positivity to help combat some of the negatives your home might have.

For more Rockland County home selling tips call me at 845-480-2366 or email me at michael.truiano@randrealty.com. Or start your home selling process by checking your home value below.