[SailCT]

Agree with Juniper5. There were lots of deals to be had last winter when only the low end (below $1 M) was moving but in the spring those properties above $1M started to move and I think largely due to Royal Bank of Scotland consolidating their operations in the big new building in Stamford; that added some pressure to the market so that throughout the summer many high-end homes started selling in the $2M+ range. I think if you are looking for a deal; the best time to buy is always at the end of the year. I would expect to see the same pattern in New Canaan and somewhat in Greenwich but it is much larger than the other two mentioned.

[arielmina]

yes the real estate market in those areas is soft...I'm surprised that Darien would be doing the best per the one of the above posters. My brother is in Darien and said he'd never be able to sell his house now (built new in 2007) not even with a huge loss...it just wouldn't sell. The market there really lives and dies by Wall Street. if bonuses are paid out this year and look as normal, then it will pick up.

[SailCT]

The Darien market has already picked-up. It was very dead last fall and winter; then it started to pick-up in the spring and was heating-up over the summer. Now that school has started I think it will slow down again; I think that several months from now the posted stats will show this uptick; same will be true for New Canaan, and Greenwich. I think that Royal Bank of Scotland consolidating into Stamford; along with many parents from NYC wanting great public schools, and low taxes is having an effect on all these towns; and many others possibly around Stamford; that are commutable. I think this trend will continue as new "reverse" commuters from New Jersey and NYC tire of their reverse commute.

[larsm]

Blog by Chris Fountain (an honest real estate agent in Greenwich) will give you are very good feel for Greenwich, which can most likely be extrapolated to other towns you mention. Blog is FOR WHAT ITS WORTH... no affliation, blah, blah, blah.

[trooper638]

Darien has always been a growth rate town, but of course over the past few years as all across the country Darien has devalued. However, Darien and Greenwich have held up pretty well in this market losing only 23% vs 30% average loss in the state since 2007. Another great website for statistical data about the market is raveis.com, which will show local housing data for any town in CT, RI and MA. The data is collected from all the Multiple Listing services and is not just based on their sales, and you can get histrorical data 12 months + for trending purposes. Another site as a guide is www. zillow.com to help determine a homes value, but it takes data from sales that may be too far away from the subject property or very old, very old meaning more than 3 months.