Only One Of 18 Belchertown Deeds Recorded This Period Carries A Price

BELCHERTOWN -- The Hampshire County Registry of Deeds recorded 18 property transfers in Belchertown between Aug. 21 and Sept. 19, but only one carries a sale price so far, and eight of the 18 involved a bank or credit union as the seller.

MARKET OVERVIEW Eighteen property transfers were recorded in Belchertown during the period. Of those, only 162 Barton Ave. has a sale price on file: $420,000, recorded Aug. 25. That single figure currently stands as both the low and high end of the range and the median, but it reflects one transaction, not the full set of 18 filings. Prices for the remaining 17 deeds typically appear in the registry within about a week of recording and had not posted as of this report. With 17 of 18 transfers still awaiting price data, the period's overall activity level, active or quiet, cannot yet be assessed from price alone; the raw count of 18 recorded documents is a mix of home sales, bank transfers and administrative filings, detailed below.

TOP SALES 162 Barton Ave. sold for $420,000 on Aug. 25. The sellers were Peter J. Shaw and Suzanne V. Shaw; the buyer was Country Bank for Savings. The deed lists the bank as grantee rather than grantor, consistent with a foreclosure-related transfer rather than an open-market sale to a new homeowner. No other deed recorded in this period carries a sale price yet, so no additional properties can be ranked by price at this time.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN Sabin Street had the most recorded activity of any street in the period, with three separate transfers: 210 Sabin St. (DaCosta to Desautels, Aug. 24), 56 Sabin St. (Fuller to a declaration of homestead filing, Aug. 24) and 174 Sabin St. (Country Bank for Savings to Maggi, Aug. 21). No other street had more than one recorded transfer. Because pricing is available for only one of the 18 deeds, sales cannot yet be grouped into price tiers.

MARKET NOTES Eight of the 18 recorded transfers list a bank or credit union as the seller, transferring previously bank-held property to individual buyers: 49 Brandywine Dr. (Citizens Bank NA/RBS Citizens NA to Fox), 351 Ware Rd. (Citizens Bank NA to Mas), 174 Sabin St. and 628 Warren Wright Rd. (both Country Bank for Savings, to Maggi and Meehan respectively), 59 Jackson St. and 141 Sheffield Dr. (both T Bank/Peoples United Bank NA, to Davidsohn and Beaudry respectively), 530 South St. (Monson Savings Bank to Vallone) and 8 Forest Rd. (Freedom Credit Union to MacDonald). A ninth deed, 162 Barton Ave., runs the opposite direction, from individual owners to a bank. Deed records do not indicate why these properties came to be bank-held or what their original sale terms were.

Several of the 18 recorded documents are not conventional buyer-to-buyer sales. Two, at 341 Old Enfield Rd. and 56 Sabin St., are declarations of homestead. One, at 41 Hickory Hill, is a scrivener's affidavit correcting an earlier recorded document. One, at 574 North Gulf Rd., transfers the property from Michael A. Henson to himself as trustee of his own revocable trust. One, at 76 South Liberty St., is a certificate of compliance. Two involve municipal or quasi-municipal parties: 432 State St., transferred from Weston Brook Property LLC to the town of Belchertown, and a parcel transferred from the town to the Belchertown Economic Development and Industrial Corp. No bed, bath or square-footage data is available in deed records for any property in this period, so no price-per-square-foot comparisons could be made, and property type (single-family, condominium or multi-family) is not distinguishable from the data provided.

Recorded Deeds

Source: Registry of Deeds. Sale amounts shown as recorded; transfers without a disclosed consideration are noted as such.

Compiled from official town feeds, community organizations, and local press. Outside reporting is attributed inline.