St. John’s real estate market in 2007 could have been a lot worse. The National Association of Realtors reported an almost 13% decline in U.S. home sales during the year. On St. John, there were 29 homes reported sold last year, a 12% drop from the 33 transactions in 2006.
Karye Carney of Islandia Real Estate called the year’s results, "reassuring, particularly if you read the doom and gloom scenario for the mainland resort markets overall." However, land sales were a bleaker story. "(The) speculative land sector of the market fared quite poorly with only 27 sales in 2007 compared to 49 in 2006."
Despite the lower number of home sales, the value of the transactions rose to $57.5 million, the second highest total in history. However, the number was inflated by the record sale ($14 million) of a Peter Bay residence. By itself, that transaction added $500,000 to the "average sales price" for the year, which was $1.982 million. Without that high end deal, the average price would have been $1.482 million, about the same as in 2006.
The most active neighborhoods for business were Chocolate Hole (6 transactions), Carolina (5), Peter Bay (3) and Rendezvous/Ditliff (3).
A roundup of real estate sales on island is available at http://www.islandiarealestate.com/statsummary.cfm
Well, doom and gloom in real estate is only one aspect of an individual’s asset portfolio. The market on STJ may not only be affected by a slow down in the RE market, but also by the reduction in folks’ portfolio. I believe this happened in the late ’90’s