The 77 South Angell condos, at the corner of Butler Avenue and South Angell Street on Providence’s East Side, have units priced from $785,000 to $1,650,000. Agents hope that empty nesters tired of large houses will be attracted to them.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

As the number of condominium sales in Rhode Island continues to slide, and some developers have been driven to rent unsold units, new projects planned during the housing boom continue to keep condominium inventory high this fall.

Although statistics from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors show a slight decrease in condo inventory this month, 1,721, from levels at the same time last year (1,849) and in 2006 (1,859), not every condo on the market is listed on the Multiple Listing Service and counted in the association’s statistics.

The group has also tracked a sharp drop-off in the number of condos sold year to date — 729 this year versus 1,010 last year — a decrease of nearly 28 percent.

The median price of condos sold has also fallen this year, although the decline is not nearly as dramatic as that of multifamily properties. According to RIAR, the median price of condos sold this year to date is $234,900, versus $249,000 last year and $239,000 in 2006.

The model unit and sales office for the Capitol Cove condominium project in Providence opened on Canal Street Sept. 21, though the first phase of the project — 96 units — will not be completed until the end of the year.

Capitol Cove developer Robert S. Roth said despite the fact that other downtown condo developers — The 903, the Residences at the Westin, and Waterplace Park — have turned to rentals in the past year, he still has confidence in the Providence condo market. Roth said he thinks that Capitol Cove’s location between downtown and the East Side, and the price point — the mid-300s to mid-500s — will attract buyers next spring.

The developer is offering a “hard-hat” tour of the project on Oct. 19.

A smaller-scale but higher-end condominium development in Providence’s East Side had a grand opening Oct. 5. The 77 South Angell project includes 11 condominiums priced from $750,000 to $1,650,000. The target market is empty nesters looking to downsize from a large family home in the East Side, or from a big home in the suburbs. The new building is at the intersection of South Angell Street and Butler Avenue, at the site of the former Katherine Gibbs school. The developers are The Armory Revival Company and Myles Standish Associates. According to Robert E. Dupre, Jr. of Armory Revival, the most expensive unit in the building, a 2,600-square-foot penthouse, is already under agreement, although the building will not be ready for occupancy until next month.

At The 903 condominiums, the 330-unit development near the Providence Place mall and The Promenade, more units have been rented than sold. According to property manager Fred Vincent, about 100 units have been sold and over 190 are rented. To fill the remaining vacant units with renters, a first month of free rent incentive is being offered through the end of this month.

The Residences at the Westin are currently 60 percent occupied with owners and renters, according to Ralph V. Izzi Jr., marketing communications director for The Procaccianti Group, which owns the condo tower/hotel. Representatives of Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., owners of Waterplace Park, could not be reached for comment on occupancy and sales at their downtown towers.

Condominiums tend to be clustered in the urban and resort sections of the state, so the communities with the highest number of condos listed for sale tend to be either the most densely populated or near popular waterfront locations, including Providence (173) the East Side of Providence (105), Newport (151) North Providence (147), South Kingstown (77), Westerly (82) and Portsmouth (62).

In suburban Barrington, which is an overwhelmingly single-family market, the supply of condominiums listed for sale recently doubled, from two to four. Beth Davis, an agent with Coleman Realtors, bought a foreclosed property at 52 County Rd. that included a historical windmill with a once-attached farmhouse cottage. She had the cottage moved farther from the windmill, renovated both properties, and put them on the market as detached condominiums, each priced at $324,900. The only other condominiums listed for sale in Barrington are in a new building at 60 Bay Spring Ave., priced at $199,000 and $220,000.

In Woonsocket, Duane Boucher of Boucher & Company held a “no reserve” sealed-bid auction Oct. 4 for two condo units at Gateway Commons. Boucher said the auction resulted in an offer on one of the units (that offer is now in negotiation) and a number of viewings of the other unit.

“We’re just trying to think outside the box,” Boucher said. “It’s kind of a perfect storm for buyers,” he added, because both prices and interest rates have been falling in recent months. “... Normally, when we’ve seen prices go down, it’s because rates have gone up.”

Stephen Danyla, an agent with Gower & Co. Real Estate of Providence, said for agents in the real estate trenches, the going is tough in all market segments, and in today’s market, every sale is a struggle.

Danyla said he closed Tuesday on a condominium he had listed in Pawtuxet Village; the elegant three-bedroom, tri-level unit sold for more than $400,000, but Danyla recalled that his listing had almost expired when another agent visited with a client who ended up being the buyer.

“I’m in this survival mode,” Danyla said, “and I’m just focusing on getting my next listing sold.”

cdunn@projo.com