Only two of 14 Amherst property transfers disclosed a sale price

AMHERST -- Fourteen property transfers were recorded at the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds for Amherst between Aug. 14 and Sept. 12, but only two included a disclosed sale price, limiting what can be said about the month's market conditions.

MARKET OVERVIEW The registry recorded 14 transfers in the period. Of those, two carried a disclosed consideration amount, ranging from $100,000 to $539,000. The median of those two disclosed prices was $319,500. Because only 2 of 14 transfers reported a price, that figure reflects a small sample and should not be read as representative of Amherst's broader market for the period. The overall count of 14 recorded transfers is consistent with routine registry activity; there is no basis in this dataset to characterize the period as more or less active than usual without prior-month figures for comparison.

TOP SALES The highest disclosed sale was 2 Wintergreen Circle, which recorded Aug. 14 at $539,000. The sellers were listed as Olufunmilayo A. Adeoyin and Olaekan A. Adeoyin; the grantee was recorded as Cardinal Financial Co. LP and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. Bed, bath and square footage figures were not available in the deed record.

The second disclosed sale was 622 E. Pleasant St., which recorded Aug. 17 at $100,000. The sellers were listed as Saralyn Steingiser and Roger C. Jones; the grantee was recorded as Bank of America NA. As with the Wintergreen Circle transfer, this deed pairs an individual seller with a lending institution as grantee, a pattern typical of foreclosure-related filings rather than a conventional owner-to-owner sale.

The remaining 12 recorded transfers did not include a disclosed sale price and cannot be ranked by value.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN Two of the 14 transfers involved adjacent addresses on the same street: 234 Henry St. and 228 Henry St. both recorded Aug. 17, both with Christine Pratt as seller and Amherst Town as buyer. No other street had more than one recorded transfer in the period.

Because only two transfers disclosed a price, breaking down sales by price tier is not meaningful for this period. Of the two that did disclose a price, one fell under $500,000 (622 E. Pleasant St., $100,000) and one fell above it (2 Wintergreen Circle, $539,000).

MARKET NOTES Four of the 14 recorded transfers list Amherst Town as the buyer: 234 Henry St., 228 Henry St., 66 Pine Grove, and one entry with no street address listed, all with individual sellers. None of these municipal acquisitions carried a disclosed price.

Five transfers involved a bank or lending entity as either seller or buyer: PeoplesBank appears as seller on three transfers (43 Aubinwood Road, 60 Amity Place, and 67 North Whitney St.), Avidia Bank appears as seller on one (170 East Hadley Road, Unit 13), and BankESB appears as seller on one (222 Flat Hills Road). Bank of America NA and Cardinal Financial Co. LP/Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. appear as buyers on the two disclosed-price transfers described above. None of the bank-involved transfers disclosed a price.

Three of the 14 recorded entries do not appear to represent property sales at all: the record for 195 Montague Road lists the buyer as "Notice of Substantial Completion," the record for 65 High St. lists the buyer as "Decision Regarding Special Permit," and the record for 708 Bay Road lists the buyer as "Declaration of Homestead." These appear to be non-sale documents captured in the same registry filing category as deeds, rather than transfers of ownership for consideration.

No property type, bedroom, bathroom or square footage data was available for any of the 14 recorded transfers.

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.