WESTFIELD – West Springfield developer Joseph Kelley is advancing his plan to build an 11-lot subdivision off Northwest Road to the city Planning Board. These lots measure out at about 40,000 square feet, or one acre, each, at a cost estimated at $125,000 per lot.
Ted Cassell, owner of Park Square Realty, said that the building market for new homes is improving and that the proposed location for these lots is great.
“That’s a nice part of the city for lots,” he said. “Whether or not they’ll get that price, the market will dictate.”
Cassell said that Park Square handled a subdivision last year where lots in a 13-acre subdivision were selling for $130,000 apiece.
“That was obviously a larger piece of land,” he said. “But there was another sale on Sackett Road, a 3-acre lot, that sold for $125,000, along with a recent sale of a 0.7-acre lot in an established neighborhood for $90,000. It was like an extra lot that no one had ever really built on.”
Cassell said the 0.7 lot was initially listed at $125,000, confirming his point that the market will dictate what these lots will sell for, as well as whether the lots have access to public water and sewer. The Northwest Road lots will only have public water.
“That will make them more expensive, having to put in a septic system,” said Cassell, who estimates such a system would cost in the range of $15,000-$20,000.
He also said that Park Square Realty is anticipating a great 2015 in regards to new lots.
“When you’re thinking about building and buying a lot, the homes are probably going to be in the $350,000 and up range, so people have to feel good and confident about their employment situation,” said Cassell. “More than likely, people are going to have to sell their other home and the market is improving for that, too.”
Kathleen Witalisz, owner of Witalisz & Associates, Inc. in Westfield, also believes that the city’s market for building is turning around.
“We’re coming out of the worst of the worst, and all of our economic indicators are proving that things are going to get better,” she said. “We do have good opportunities to buy new homes, used homes, reconditioned, refurbished, remodeled, etc.”
Witalisz reiterated that Westfield is a “fabulous place” for young families to live and that these are types of families that typically seek to inhabit newer, recently built neighborhoods.
“If the subdivision gets approved, it’ll go,” she said. “How fast or how long it’ll take, the absorption factors… I haven’t done the studies on those yet, but it’s anybody’s guess.”
“Time will tell, but if a ready, willing and able buyer is ready to pay for it, than a ready, willing and able seller will be able to sell it,” said Witalisz.
