Only Sale Price Disclosed in Charlemont Deed Data Sets July Benchmark at $675,000

CHARLEMONT -- Franklin County Registry of Deeds records show 11 property transfers in Charlemont over the four weeks ending Aug. 15, but only one deed disclosed a sale price, leaving most of the period's activity difficult to evaluate in dollar terms.

MARKET OVERVIEW

Eleven sales were recorded in Charlemont between July 17 and Aug. 15. Of those, only one deed listed a consideration amount: $675,000 for a property on Legate Hill Road. Because that is the sole disclosed price, both the price range and the median sale price stand at $675,000, a figure that reflects one transaction rather than the town's broader market. Ten of the 11 deeds did not list a sale price, a pattern common to trust, estate and lender-related transfers, several of which appear in this batch. In terms of raw volume, 11 recorded transfers in a month is a moderate level of activity for a small town, but with pricing data this limited, the underlying market's tone cannot be characterized beyond that count.

TOP SALES

421 Legate Hill Road sold for $675,000 on July 20. The seller was Lea King, trustee of the Lea King Trust; the buyers were James Edward Charron and Sarah Elizabeth Charron, as trustees. It is the only transaction in this period with a disclosed price.

The remaining 10 transfers carried no listed consideration, so they cannot be ranked by price. They include a July 23 transfer of 143 Charlemont Road from Newrez LLC and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. to Mark C. and Debra J. Fiske; a July 29 transfer of 66 Thunder Mountain Road from Berkshire East Ski Resort; and an Aug. 11 transfer of 60 South River Road from Florence Bank and Florence Savings Bank to William and Jessica Musiak. Price was not disclosed for any of these.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN

No two sales in this period shared a street name, so the transfers are spread across Charlemont rather than clustered in one area. Streets with recorded transfers include Route 2, South River Road, West Oxbow Road, Avery Brook Road, Heath Road, Hawk Hill Road, East Hawley Road, Thunder Mountain Road, Charlemont Road and Legate Hill Road.

By price tier, one transaction falls in the $500,000-to-$1 million range: the $675,000 Legate Hill Road sale. The other 10 transfers, spanning the streets listed above, carried no disclosed price and cannot be placed into a tier.

One pair of deeds, both recorded Aug. 10 with Mark E. Ostergren and Sharon O. Pierce as sellers and Pine Hill Property Trust as buyer, covers a Charlemont address listed without a street name and a separate parcel at 136 West Oxbow Road. Deed records do not indicate whether these represent one combined transaction or two related ones.

MARKET NOTES

Deed records for this period do not include bedroom, bathroom or square-footage figures, and property type, such as single-family, condominium or multi-family, is not specified in the data, so no outlier or mix analysis is possible.

Several transfers involved trusts. Edward A. Bimbo transferred 24 Heath Road to himself as trustee of the Bimbo Investment Trust on Aug. 6, the same day a deed for 24 Avery Brook Road listed Edward A. Bimbo as trustee of that same trust as seller. Jonah A. Keane, trustee of the Peter A. Kerr Trust, transferred 79 Hawk Hill Road to Jonah A. and Charis W. Keane on Aug. 3. Howard M. Krusz, trustee of the Lawrence A. Krusz Investment Trust, was the buyer of 82 East Hawley Road from Deerfield Valley Farms LLC on July 30. The Legate Hill Road sale also moved from a trust seller to trustee buyers. Deed records do not indicate the reason for these trust-to-trust or individual-to-trust transfers.

Two transactions involved financial institutions as sellers: Florence Bank and Florence Savings Bank transferred 60 South River Road on Aug. 11, and Newrez LLC together with Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. transferred 143 Charlemont Road on July 23. One deed, for 1463 Route 2 on Aug. 14, listed a seller but no buyer in the available record.

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.