Gazette: “Contractors assess extent of slowdown, as some projects lag”

Today’s Gazette contains a large section examining the local real estate market. Softness in residential development is evident…

Construction at crossroads, or dead end? Contractors assess extent of slowdown, as projects lag

For the first time in recent memory, Northampton city planners do not expect to have a permit application for a residential or commercial project before them, when they meet later this month.

Building permits in the city are down by 300 filings in the first six months of the fiscal year, compared to the same period last year.

And the biggest residential development planned in years, a 90-unit subdivision slated for North King Street, has stalled for lack of investment…

Foreclosures have spiked in the Valley and around Massachusetts during the past year. Foreclosure petitions rose 46 percent in Hampshire County, from 216 in 2006 to 316 in 2007, according to the Boston-based Warren Group, which tracks such statistics…

What the city is not seeing these days are new plans for subdivisions, though the scarcity of developable land factors into that, according to Feiden [Wayne M. Feiden, director of the Office of Planning and Development in Northampton]…

In Massachusetts, building permits for single and multi-family homes were down 25 percent in 2007 compared to the previous calendar year, according to data from the National Association of Home Builders…

[David Deitz, president of Deitz Construction Corp. in Easthampton] noted that a lot of new housing is selling at a slower pace than in recent years, “which means not a lot of work for us.”

…In Hampshire County, the average time a house stayed on the market in 2007 was 138 days, more than a month longer than in 2006, when homes stayed on the market an average of 103 days, according to Linda Rotti, sales manager for Jones Town and Country in Amherst and past president of Realtor Association of the Pioneer Valley.

The Pioneer Valley saw a 10-percent drop in home sales during the same time…

See also:

Gazette: “North King Street condominium project stalls” (1/26/08)
James M. Harrity Jr., of Northampton, has put 46 acres off North King Street on the market for $2.4 million. The listing comes one year after the Planning Board granted Harrity’s firm, Equity Builders Realty LLC, a special permit to build 88 condominiums on about 10 acres of the property as part of a cluster development.

“The market conditions are very tough right now,” said Harrity…

Several neighbors had criticized the project, including the clear-cutting of trees on land near the Fitzgerald Lake Conservation Area. Harrity agreed to donate 29 acres to the city as protected open space, which the City Council has already approved…

“I’m not really in a position to carry this for the next two years until the market turns around,” Harrity said…

AP: 2007 sales of single-family homes “plunged by the largest amount in 25 years” (1/24/08)
Existing condominium and co-op sales fell 3.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 580,000 units in December from 600,000 in November, and are 24.5 percent below the 768,000-unit pace a year ago. Condo sales for all of 2007 fell 11.0 percent to 713,000 units.

The Republican: “House losses soar by 148%” (1/24/08)

AP: “Construction of New Homes Falls 24.8 Percent in 2007, the Largest Amount in 27 Years” (1/17/08)

Republican: Florence condo units sold at half-price (12/4/07)