One disclosed sale sets an incomplete $750,000 benchmark for New Marlborough

NEW MARLBOROUGH -- Eight property transfers were recorded at the Southern Berkshire Registry of Deeds between Aug. 7 and Sept. 5, but only one carried a disclosed sale price, and banks or credit unions were party to four of the eight deeds.

MARKET OVERVIEW The registry recorded eight transfers in the period. Of those, seven listed no consideration amount, a common feature of certain deed types and not necessarily a reflection of the underlying sale price. The single disclosed transaction, at 201 Stratford Rd, sold for $750,000, making that figure both the low and high end of the known price range and the de facto median. With only one of eight sales carrying a public price, the overall value of the period's activity cannot be assessed from price data alone. Transaction count alone shows eight recorded deeds in four weeks.

TOP SALES 201 Stratford Rd sold for $750,000 on Sept. 1. The sellers were listed as Homi K. Bhabha and Jacqueline M. Bhabha, as trustees; the buyers were listed as Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. and Morgan Stanley Private Bank NA. No other transaction in the period had a disclosed price, so no additional entries can be ranked by sale amount. Bed, bath and square footage figures are not available from deed records.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN Two of the eight transfers involved roads carrying the "Southfield Rd" name: 239 Mill River Southfield Rd, sold Aug. 28, and 2170 Canaan Southfield Rd, sold Aug. 12. The remaining six transfers were spread across separate roads with no repeated street names: Hartsville Mill River Road, an unspecified New Marlborough address, Brewer Branch Road, County Road, and Lumbert Cross Road. Because only one sale had a disclosed price, transactions cannot be grouped into price tiers.

MARKET NOTES A bank or credit union was named as buyer or seller in four of the eight recorded deeds: Lee Bank sold 239 Mill River Southfield Rd to Matthew and Barbara Kelly; UMassFive College Federal Credit Union sold 108 County Rd to W. Hilary Simons and Alexandra Houston; NBT Bank NA sold 185 Lumbert Cross Rd to Nancy Ann and Lawrence Bruce Bronstein; and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. and Morgan Stanley Private Bank NA were listed as buyers of 201 Stratford Rd. One transfer, 395 Brewer Branch Rd, went from an individual seller, Zachary F. Gagnon, to Massachusetts Electric Co. Another, 1277 Hartsville Mill River Rd, was sold by the New Marlborough Town Conservation to Elan and Lydia Merkel. A transfer of 2170 Canaan Southfield Rd moved between two people sharing the Schoonmaker surname, Erik S. Schoonmaker and Gary Schoonmaker, consistent with a within-family transfer. No sale price was disclosed for any of these transactions. Property type (single-family, condominium or multi-family) is not specified in the available deed data.

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.