As we make our marketing push into our neighboring state of Rhode Island, we must be able to speak intelligently about the condominium market of the state. As mentioned in the Rhode Island Real Estate article, Rhode Island has the second highest population density in the country. This should lend well to condo unit sales.
North Kingstown Rhode Island Condo Data for 2013
North Kingstown has 33 condominium projects, 17 of them are 10 units are less. 2-unit condominiums are very common in Rhode Island. There are 4 projects that are currently approved with FHA. In these condominiums, 278 units are available for FHA financing; the remaining condominiums total 349 units. Before FHA’s changes in 2011 there were 10 projects on FHA’s Approved Condominiums List.
Analysis of Data
We typically divide the listing data into those in FHA-approved condos and those that are in non-FHA projects. However, because of an anomaly, listed units in one FHA-approved project were placed with the non-FHA condos.
In North Kingstown, condominium listings have a 63% chance of selling overall. However, units listed in FHA-approved condominiums have nearly a 3:1 ratio of sold units to unsold units. In non-FHA projects, units are only slightly more likely to sell than to not sell. This is consistent with other towns and cities that we have examined.
The average and median marketing times are substantially better in the FHA-approved condos than in the non-FHA condos. One can argue that higher-priced real estate does take longer to sell; there is a smaller buyer pool.
So, to take this one step further, we looked at the average and median marketing times for units in non-FHA communities whose prices fall in the FHA range. The average for these units were 125 days and the median was 101 days. This means that these units take a month longer to sell than those listed in FHA-approved communities. Might this have to do with having a larger buyer pool?
The average sales price in FHA-approved condos closely resemble that of of the average list price. However, the average sale price in non-FHA condos is much higher than the average list price. This suggest that the higher-priced units are more likely to sell than the lower-priced units.
Further digging uncovered that the average list price of unsold units in non-FHA projects was $250,000, which supports the theory in the previous paragraph that the lower-priced units struggled to sell. If these condominiums been on the FHA Approved Condominiums List, they may have had a better chance to sell.
Of the 15 listings that went unsold in non-FHA condominiums, 11 of them had list prices at or below $250,000. This is FHA’s “sweet spot” and had they been approved with FHA, the increased number of available buyers might have impacted their potential to sell.
*NOTE: Quidnessett Country Club is currently on the FHA Approved Condominiums List. However, the units listed for sale in this project ranged from $514,900 to $695,000. The FHA maximum loan amount in this area is $426,650. In order to purchase the least expensive unit, the buyer would have to make a down payment of $88,000, or 17%. Therefore, it is not likely that the FHA approval had anything to do with sales in this community so we placed all listing data in the non-FHA category.
Doing so increased the numbers of sold units and sales prices of non-FHA condos and decreased the same in the FHA-approved projects. We believe this to be a more accurate depiction of the condominium market in North Kingstown.
Related Articles:
Southington CT Condo Sales 2013
Rocky Hill CT Condo Sales 2013
Manchester CT Condo Sales 2013
East Hartford Condo Sales 2013
Condominium Market Data for Ellington, CT
Condominium Market Data for Bristol, CT
2013 Q4 Market Data for Newington, CT
2013 Q4 Market Data for South Windsor, CT
Top Photo Credit: (c) Can Stock Photo / EyeMark