This month, I’ve chosen to do a more detailed statistical analysis of homes sold in Ulster County, complete with graphs to make it easier to visualize trends.  I’ve pulled data from the Ulster County MLS for residential homes sold in Ulster County and have removed any of the data for reported for sales that took place in neighboring counties.

This graph shows that the Homebuyer Tax Credit had an unmistakable impact on the local market.  Up until July, more homes were sold each month in 2010 vs. 2009.  Starting in July, the reverse trend was observed–more homes were sold in 2009 vs. 2010 every month.  The tax credit stipulated that all homes had to be in contract by April 30th in order to be eligible for the tax credit.  It typically takes two months for a home to close, so naturally most of these homes would close by approximately June 30th.  We’ve identified here that June to July was the tipping point and that observation runs consistent with the fizzling out of sales after the expiration of the tax credit.

When we compare the number of homes sold year to date (until the end of October 2010), 870 residential homes have sold in 2010 compared to 787 in 2009.  At the moment we’re still ahead of last year’s pace, but it is likely that we’ll continue to see less sales for the remainder of 2010 vs. 2009.

In October 2010, 83 homes sold vs. 114 in 2009.

There isn’t such a clear month-to-month trend when we look at the median home price.  The year-to-date statistics seem to be a better measure to rely on for median price.  The 2010 year-to-date median price is $211,000 while it was $205,000 in 2009.  The fact that the median price is higher in 2010 is a positive sign that real estate is holding its value despite all of the negative economic factors we’ve been hearing about.

In October 2010, the median price was$205,000 vs. $215,000 in 2009.

I’ll be following the same methodology every month so that all of our readers get the most in-depth analysis of the Ulster County real estate market anywhere.