Single disclosed price leaves Williamsburg's August deed activity hard to read

WILLIAMSBURG -- The Hampshire County Registry of Deeds recorded 11 property transfers in Williamsburg between Aug. 7 and Sept. 5, but only one listed a sale price, leaving most of the period's market activity undocumented in dollar terms.

MARKET OVERVIEW

Eleven deed transactions were recorded in Williamsburg during the four-week period. Of those, one disclosed a sale price: $210,000. Because that is the only price available, it stands as both the low and high end of the range, and as the reported median. The raw count of 11 recorded documents suggests a period of routine registry activity, but that figure includes transfers that are not conventional home sales between a willing buyer and seller, so it should not be read as a measure of 11 homes changing hands on the open market.

TOP SALES

The lone disclosed sale was a property in Williamsburg that transferred from Frances Tilley, individually and as trustee, to Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc. for $210,000, recorded Aug. 7. Bed, bath and square footage figures are not available from deed records. No other transaction in the period listed a consideration amount, so no further ranking by price is possible; the remaining 10 recorded transfers are listed as price not disclosed.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN

Goshen Road had two recorded transfers: 47 Goshen Road, from Raeann and Alexander Woytowicz, recorded as a declaration of homestead Aug. 19; and 39 Goshen Road, from Donald E. and Jacqueline A. Lawton to Pamela E. and Robert A. Parker, recorded Aug. 17. Valley View Road also had two entries, both recorded Aug. 7 with Frances Tilley, individually and as trustee, as grantor and the Town of Williamsburg as grantee: 11 Valley View Road and 12 Valley View Road. The remaining transfers were single entries on Hemenway Road, Main Street, Cider Mill Road, Petticoat Hill Road, Deer Haven Drive and Village Hill Avenue, with no other street-level clustering in the data. Because only one transaction disclosed a price, no price-tier breakdown is possible.

MARKET NOTES

Four of the 11 recorded documents list "declaration of homestead" as the grantee rather than a new owner: 47 Goshen Road, 9 Cider Mill Road, 2 Deer Haven Drive and 12 Village Hill Avenue. A homestead declaration is a legal filing an existing owner records to protect equity in a primary residence; it does not represent a change in ownership, and these four should not be counted as sales. One additional record, 183 Main St., lists an "order of conditions" as grantee, tied to Williamsburg Town Conservation and Chris Duval as grantors; this is a conservation-related filing, not a property sale. Two transfers show a lender as grantor: Greenfield Savings Bank conveyed 77 Hemenway Road to Gregory A. Kilbride on Aug. 21, and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. (MERS) conveyed 4 Petticoat Hill Road to Walter D. Dufresne Jr. on Aug. 10. Deed records do not disclose the circumstances behind these transfers. Separately, Frances Tilley, individually and as trustee, appears as grantor on three of the period's records: the $210,000 sale to Massachusetts Audubon Society and the two Valley View Road transfers to the Town of Williamsburg, all recorded the same day, Aug. 7. Given that only one of 11 recorded documents disclosed a sale price, and four of the 11 were homestead declarations rather than ownership transfers, this dataset does not support a reliable read on home values or sales volume for the period.

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.