Danvers home sale tops $2 million as trust transfers dominate deed records

DANVERS -- Essex County Registry of Deeds records for Danvers show 14 property transfers recorded between July 17 and Aug. 15, but sale prices were disclosed for only two of them, limiting what the month's deed data can say about the broader market.

MARKET OVERVIEW

Fourteen deeds were recorded in Danvers during the period, but only two listed a sale price: $512,000 and $2,060,000. Those two figures average to $1,286,000, a number reported here as the period's median but based on just two disclosed transactions, not the full set of 14. The remaining 12 deeds, roughly 86 percent of the total, carried no consideration amount in the public record, which is common for certain deed types, including trust and estate transfers. Because so few prices are available, the raw count of 14 recorded deeds cannot be characterized as active or quiet relative to price trends; it reflects transaction volume only.

TOP SALES

The highest-priced transaction was a property in Danvers, address not specified in the deed record, which sold for $2,060,000 on Aug. 14. The seller was listed as Karen Doherty and the buyer as Thomas R. Haught. The second-highest, and only other disclosed price, was 234 Locust St., Lot A, which sold for $512,000 on Aug. 14; the seller was listed as Lester V. LeBlanc, trustee, and the buyer as Dominic Colella, trustee. No other transactions in this dataset included a sale price, so a fuller ranking of top sales beyond these two is not possible from the available records.

NEIGHBORHOOD BREAKDOWN

Most streets in this dataset appear only once. The exception is Lakeview Avenue, where two separate deeds were recorded on Aug. 11 for 19 Lakeview Ave. and 19 Lakeview Ave., Lot 21, both transferring from Joseph B. Rooney to Joseph B. Rooney as trustee; prices were not disclosed for either. By price tier, the two disclosed sales split across a wide range: one under $1 million ($512,000, Locust Street) and one over $1 million ($2,060,000, address not specified). With prices undisclosed for the other 12 sales, a tier breakdown cannot be extended across the full dataset.

MARKET NOTES

The most notable pattern in this period's data is not price but transaction type. Of the 14 recorded deeds, nine show the same individual or family name on both the seller and buyer lines, consistent with transfers into personal or family trusts or, in one case, from an estate representative to an heir: Raymond F. Hebert (as representative) to Raymond F. Hebert at 3 Apple Tree Rd., Lot 15; Marion L. Freeman to the Freeman Family Living Trust at 12 Burley Ave.; Catherine L. Kelly to Catherine L. Kelly as trustee at 100-117 Kirkbride Dr., Unit 156; Andrew J. Vaughan to Andrew J. Vaughan as trustee at 38 N Shore Ave., Lot 17; Paul E. Trainor to Paul E. Trainor as trustee at 35 Collins St., Unit 53; John E. Stegelmann to John E. Stegelmann at 72 Village Post Rd., Unit 72; Joseph B. Rooney to Joseph B. Rooney as trustee at both 19 Lakeview Ave. records; and Richard S. Boccelli Jr. to Richard S. Boccelli Jr. as trustee at 26 Ledgewood Dr., Lot 47A. None of these nine carried a disclosed price.

The remaining five deeds involved a different-named buyer and seller, consistent with an open-market sale: the $2,060,000 and $512,000 transactions noted above, plus three undisclosed-price sales, the Gagnon Trust to Cheryl Ann Billings at 24 Brentwood Cir., Lot 11; Anthony V. Rosa to Macristina A. Delatina at 41 Carriage Way, Unit 41; and Patricia White, trustee, to Sarah Vogel at 27 Berry St., Lot 2. Deed records here do not include property type, square footage or bedroom and bathroom counts, so no comparison of price per square foot or housing type is possible for this 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.