"Dramatic Shift in RI Condo Market" - Mott & Chace's Scungio LIVE

"Dramatic Shift in RI Condo Market" - Mott & Chace's Scungio LIVE

Ben Scungio with Mott & Chace Sotheby's International Realty said that there has been a "dramatic shift" in the condo market in Rhode Island during the pandemic -- and offered his insights about what to expect in 2021.

"We saw a dramatic shift in the condo market — specifically the downtown condo market — probably right when the pandemic started," said Scungio. "A lot of people do not want to live in buildings where there’s a hundred, two hundred, three hundred other people, shared common amenities, shared elevators. Everybody started to pump the breaks on condo living."

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

"An outlier was the property we have over at the 903, we saw an increase year over year in transactions there," he added. "But take downtown — Waterplace — a lot of people decided, 'I don’t want to live in a condo anymore. I want a backyard, I want to spread out.' there was a glut of inventory. We had a lot of units on the market, but not a lot of buyers."

"As we’re coming out of the pandemic, with vaccines, we’re starting to see the inventory come back down [in the condo market]," said Scungio. "We’re hoping the prices are really going to start to appreciate and the sales are going to tick back up."

RI Still Hot, Hot, Hot

"Philip White — the CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty — he mentioned that Rhode Island was going to be a hot spot for people coming from out of state for all the tangibles that we have — the coast, the great food scene," said Scungio.

"But you still have people who are looking to buy their first homes, people who are looking to downsize, people who are looking to buy the larger homes — the 20 to 25 year homes. Everybody is competing against each other."

Mott & Chace Sotheby's International Realty is a paid content partner of GoLocal and appears weekly on GoLocal LIVE.