New-home sales perk up in area

Contact Us ');// dynamically load cookie JS libraryif (typeof getCookie . Realtors Piekarski said he began to notice the change in late spring, heading into June. He said he has sold three houses recently with another "spec" -- a house which underwent construction before a buyer committed to it -- that might be sold soon. Piekarski said he had a subdivision in Pelham that only sold two houses in five years. The reason why some people are deciding to build new homes is because of historically low interest rates, people in the industry say. She said she began to see an uptick in the market beginning this spring. She said all six of those clients sold their homes and decided to move into a new construction because Advertisementinterest rates are low and the new homes have better value. The news locally runs contrary to the national picture. Last week, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes fell nearly 1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 298,000 -- less than half the 700,000 that economists say represent a healthy market. Tom Courtney, president of the Northeast Association of Realtors, said while new single-family home constructions are popping up, the market is still difficult for larger developments. There is a few here and there, a single-family home or a couple condos. Courtney said both of these larger developments have been selling well. But he said it is difficult to build larger developments because of a stringent financing process, despite low interest rates. Department of Housing and Urban Development tracks the number of privately owned residences that attain a local housing permit for new construction. Courtney said the National Association of Realtors came out with a study that says for every home built, $60,000 is added to the local economy from costs for builders, developers, lawyers and real-estate agents. The National Association of Home Builders released a study in 2010 about the jobs, income and public revenue that were generated in Massachusetts from building 4,751 single-family homes and 714 multifamily units in the state in 2009. He said the real-estate market began tanking in 2006 and 2007, before the economic recession hit in 2008, and he foresees that the real-estate market will pick up before the economy does.