Anyone who has been watching real estate in Palm Beach, Fla., over the past several weeks has seen the number of new contracts — and closed sales — attest to the remarkable vibrancy of the market in chaotic times.
Real estate agents and brokers barely have had time to keep their sales tallies updated, even as the country grapples with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the widespread social unrest that followed the Memorial Day death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.
But as far as the island's real estate went, the month of May delivered numbers that were nothing short of startling, with contract after contract being inked for properties townwide.
As one broker said in an informal conversation with the Daily News: "It's like we took two-and-a-half months out of the calendar, and now we're back to the height of the season."
The busy market was driven, in large part, by out-of-town buyers from areas hard hit by the coronavirus crisis seeking homes in Palm Beach, multiple brokers have reported.
The May sales data was documented in a monthly sales report released late last week by Tina Fanjul Associates. The longtime independent real estate agency in Palm Beach is headed by broker Tina Fanjul and President Crista Ryan.
The Palm Beach market "remained strong through May with a large increase in under contract single-family homes in both the North End and the Estate Section," noted the report, which used figures from the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service as its basis.
In all, May's single-family closed sales totaled $111.75 million, the report showed.
Those transactions included a sale, recorded May 13 at $4.88 million, of a 1920s-era house at 426 Sespray Ave. listed by Ryan. Ann Summers of Brown Harris Stevens represented the couple who bought the five-bedroom house with 5,862 square feet of living space. The buyers were William O. and Susan Shaw Young of Glenville, N.C., according to the deed. Stuart Huston signed the deed on behalf of the seller, a Texas limited liability company named Alexander-Huston Partners.
Here are some insights about how Palm Beach real estate performed last month, courtesy of Tina Fanjul Associates' report.
Palm Beach saw more new single-family listings in May compared to a year ago, "signaling strong seller confidence in finding a buyer late in our season," the report said.
There was a 400% year-over-year increase in single-family properties that landed under contract on the North End. And in the Estate Section, the number of homes that went under contract doubled, compared to May 2019.
Town-wide dollar sales in the single-family category, the report said, remained "relatively unchanged" in a year-over-year comparison — with the exception of an ocean-to-lake "outlier sale" on Billionaires Row at 1820 S. Ocean Blvd., which closed last month for $46.75 million. As previously reported by the Daily News, broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates had the listing for that property and agent Alan Quartucci of Brown Harris Stevens acted for the buyer, the MLS shows.
The steady sales numbers indicate "a continued strong market despite national setbacks" realted to the coronavirus crisis, the report said.
May also saw no steep, across-the-board price discounts for MLS-listed single-family properties that changed hands. Overall, properties sold for between 5% and 10% of their MLS asking prices, the report said.
On the condominium and co-op scene, shoppers in May encountered a 130% increase in new listings for so-called in-town units — those in Midtown and the near North End — compared to a year ago. Prices ranged from $475,000 to $18.75 million. And the number of condo units that went under contract matched figures from May 2019.
Total sales in May of condos and co-ops came to $29.24 million. The median sales price of condos that changed hands was up by half on the South End, to $495,000, while it rose 22%, to $1.162 million, in Midtown and the near North End. The median is the price at which half of the apartments sold for more and half for less.
And here we are in June — or is it February?
