Bernardston Home Prices Range Widely As Most Sales Go Undisclosed

BERNARDSTON -- Eleven property transfers were recorded in Bernardston between July 17 and Aug. 15, but only two listed a sale price, leaving most of the month's deed activity without a public dollar figure.

MARKET OVERVIEW Eleven deeds were recorded in town during the period. Of those, two disclosed a sale price: $232,750 and $500,000, for a full price range of $232,750 to $500,000. The median of the two disclosed prices is $366,375. With nine of 11 transactions carrying no disclosed consideration, the raw count of 11 does not, by itself, indicate whether the period was active or quiet compared with other months; no prior-period sales data was provided for comparison. The two disclosed sales also differ in character: one is a straightforward transfer to an agricultural lender, and the other lists a mortgage-services entity among the buyers, which limits how directly the two figures can be compared as typical home-sale prices.

TOP SALES The two transactions with disclosed prices led the period. 4 Brattleboro Road sold for $500,000 on July 17. The sellers were Edwin C. Gray and Matthew C. Gray; the buyer was Farm Credit East ACA. 190 River Road sold for $232,750 on Aug. 13. The sellers were Jocelyn Peters and Devin Knechtel; the buyers were HMA Mortgage and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. The remaining nine recorded transfers, at 190 River Street, 12 South Street, 372 Eden Trail, 42 West Mountain Road (recorded twice; see below), 512 Bald Mountain Road, 86 Cross Street, 120 Shaw Road and an unspecified Bernardston address, did not disclose a sale price and cannot be ranked among the top sales.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN Mountain Road saw two transfers at the same street number during the period. 42 West Mountain Road changed hands on July 29, with Mitchell A. Rousseau and Kaitlin M. Rousseau as sellers, and again on Aug. 5, with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Networks Corp., as attorney, as sellers and Matthew D. Killeen as buyer. Neither transaction disclosed a price. River Road and River Street each recorded a transfer at house number 190 on Aug. 13: one, with sellers Jocelyn Peters and Devin Knechtel, disclosed a price of $232,750; the other, sold by Irah W. Snow and Lois A. Snow, did not disclose a price. By price tier, of the two disclosed sales, one fell under $500,000 ($232,750) and one was at $500,000. The remaining nine transactions, comprising the majority of the period's activity, had no price tier that could be determined from available data. No other street in the dataset recorded more than one transfer during the period.

MARKET NOTES Banks or government agencies were sellers in five of the 11 recorded transfers. Greenfield Savings Bank sold 12 South Street to McKenzie Property Management Inc. and 372 Eden Trail to Mark D. Abramson and Wendolyn J. Abramson. Greenfield Cooperative Bank sold 512 Bald Mountain Road to Todd D. Russell and Allison E. Page, and 120 Shaw Road to Jean P. Hill. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, through its attorney, sold 42 West Mountain Road to Matthew D. Killeen. None of these five transactions disclosed a sale price. Two transfers appear to be within the same family. At 86 Cross Street, Edward J. Gruszkowski and Debra A. Gruszkowski transferred the property to Alan Gruszkowski on July 31. In an unaddressed Bernardston transfer recorded July 17, Stephen D. Messer transferred the property to himself and Matthew D. Messer. One transaction, the Aug. 13 filing at 190 River Road, listed HMA Mortgage and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. as grantees, indicating a mortgage-related filing rather than a conventional owner-to-owner sale. Beds, baths and square footage were not available in the deed data for any of the 11 transactions, so no price-per-square-foot or property-type comparisons can be made. With bank, government and mortgage-related entities appearing as parties in six of the 11 recorded transfers, deed data alone cannot establish what share of this period's activity reflects conventional owner-to-owner home sales.

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.