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Overcast Housing market in bloom
2016 looks to be a good year for Rockville Centre home sales
Brokers agree that the Rockville Centre real estate market is booming, with lots of people wanting to buy homes in the village.
“It is good — houses are moving,” said Carol O’Leary, branch manager of Coach Realtors. “Our problem is inventory. We have low inventory. Right now we currently have 112 properties for sale. … [At] this time last year, we had 122.”
The average home sells in the $600,000 to $750,000 range. Some are going for more than $1 million, although according to Rich McQuillan, owner of EXIT Links Realty, the pool of buyers starts to shrink at that price point.
“The core sellers in Rockville Centre today are owners who are empty nesters,” said Donna Einemann, of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. “They’ve lived a long while in their home, and their children are out of college and on their own.”
Rockville Centre attracts many buyers because of its school district’s excellent reputation and the convenient commute to Manhattan. “The schools and the commute are really a driving force for why they want to be here,” said Liz Byrne, an agent at Harms Real Estate. “As well as all of the commerce we offer — the amount of restaurants and shops. Our downtown area is quite robust, which always helps any town.”
Byrne said she has seen a lot of people move to Rockville Centre from New York City, as well as from New Jersey — Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken. A growing number of these buyers are young people moving out of apartments in the city or near it and into their first homes.
Nancy Achstatter, a broker at Home and Hearth Real Estate, said she targets millennials who are looking to buy on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. “I can target people who live in Brooklyn who are between 30 and 45, who are in finance,” she said. “I can send a Flipagram — a 15-second tour of the home — to those people through social media. We have all kinds of marketing avenues that were never available before.”
According to McQuillan, other buyers include those looking to move into larger homes as well as older people hoping to downsize after their children move away, but who still want to stay in town.
