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From the Prairie State Banner year for Realtors in 2015By Margo Sullivan

The Jamestown Press received a letter from fourth-graders in Illinois who want to learn about the smalleststate in the union. So we asked ourselves: Who knowsabout the environment, climate, resources and highlightsof the Ocean State more than Jamestowners? Theyoungsters will appreciate your feedback.

The glass looks half full — with a caveat or two — forJamestown’s Realtors.

Following a glowing statewide report, theisland’s realty firms confirmed the bullish

news that housing sales in 2015 were the highest in more than a decade.

According to spokeswoman Kerry Park of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, 9,782single-family homes were sold in 2015 and the median sales price was $225,000.Respectively, those numbers were up 10 percent and 5 percent from 2014. Overall, bothnumbers climbed to their highest levels since 2008, Park said.

On a percentage basis, the news was even better in town.

2016-02-04 / News

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This oceanfrontproperty at 609Beavertail Road wassold in July for $6.2million, one of onlyfour transactions ofmore than $5 millionin Rhode Island lastyear. Lila DelmanReal Estate

Buyers in Jamestown are lookingfor properties close to the village,like this Brook Street residencethat overlooks the NewportBridge. Photo by Andrea vonHohenleiten

According to Gloria Kurz of Mansions & Manors, the number ofsingle-family homes sold on the island swelled 18 percent from 67to 79. The jump represents the second-highest number ofJamestown properties sold in a calendar year in the past decade,Kurz said.

The island’s median sales price of $585,000 was second to BlockIsland’s $1.2 million, although it was Conanicut Island that led thestate with a 36 percent increase in median price.

On the minus side, some of the prices — especially for luxuryproperties — sank “significantly,” according to Bob Bailey of LilaDelman Real Estate. Also with supply and demand, he described amismatch between property conditions and the expectations oftoday’s luxury buyer. However, many of those listings werescooped up in the fourth quarter after anxious sellers lowered theirasking prices, he said, leading to 30 percent of the year’s salesclosing in the last quarter.

Not much has changed interms of average home timespent on the market,according to Island Realty’sCarol Hopkins.

The average listing lasted 149 days, she said, downjust six days from 2014. According to the report, thatfigure is almost double the state average of 80 days.

Kurz saw the overall trend as positive. The averagesale price of $820,382 is the highest in six years andup 14 percent from 2014. Also, homes sold between$500,000 and $1 million doubled in 2015, while salesof less than $500,000 decreased significantly. She

said those numbers indicate prices are starting to trend upward.

Fifteen million-dollar homes were sold in 2015 compared to 12 in 2014. That includes aBeavertail home that sold for $6.2 million in June, one of only four homes to top $5 millionin Rhode Island.

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To give a little historical perspective, 2006-09 were strong years, Kurz said, but 2010 wasthe beginning of a four-year downturn. The 2015 figures are more indicative of the earliertime frame, she said.

Looking forward, there are currently 58 so-called affordable properties (less than $1 million)on the market, Bailey said, and the largest demand continues to be in the village vicinity,where there is walkability to the schools, library and market.

Hopkins predicted the inventory will “explode in the spring,” but agreed with Bailey thatserious buyers exist now.

“Traffic is good,” she said. “Contracts are coming in on a steady basis.”

Kurz also is optimistic, expecting the first quarter of 2016 to double last year’s progress.“We saw some of our older, more expensive inventory that had been on the market for anextended time period sell, which was a really positive outcome,” she said. “I fully expect2016 will be a sweet year for real estate in Jamestown.”

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