[jp03]

Well..in starting to search for homes back in CT something is becoming noticable. The "rich" towns in Southwestern CT are showing very little depreciation in homes over the last few years while the middle class type towns are showing marked declines and it is continuing. Places from Danbury to Trumbull, even Fairfield, Norwalk and so on are showing 20 percent plus declines in home sale prices since 2007. Meanwhile places like New Canaan , Redding etc are actually showing increases. This means simply the rich are getting richer and the middle class are getting poorer. Forget the poor areas they are just down even further.

Now for me this means I can finally afford a house up there as the towns I will look in have become more affordable. But its frustrating to watch the middle class just getting trampled in this country. Something needs to reverse the trend ...and soon.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by jp03

Well..in starting to search for homes back in CT something is becoming noticable. The "rich" towns in Southwestern CT are showing very little depreciation in homes over the last few years while the middle class type towns are showing marked declines and it is continuing. Places from Danbury to Trumbull, even Fairfield, Norwalk and so on are showing 20 percent plus declines in home sale prices since 2007. Meanwhile places like New Canaan , Redding etc are actually showing increases. This means simply the rich are getting richer and the middle class are getting poorer. Forget the poor areas they are just down even further.

Now for me this means I can finally afford a house up there as the towns I will look in have become more affordable. But its frustrating to watch the middle class just getting trampled in this country. Something needs to reverse the trend ...and soon.

New Canaan may have stabilized, but it is not showing increases. The days of getting 1+million for a tear-down off of South Avenue are long gone. 750K is the max right now.

[Konig1985]

Originally Posted by jp03

Well..in starting to search for homes back in CT something is becoming noticable. The "rich" towns in Southwestern CT are showing very little depreciation in homes over the last few years while the middle class type towns are showing marked declines and it is continuing. Places from Danbury to Trumbull, even Fairfield, Norwalk and so on are showing 20 percent plus declines in home sale prices since 2007. Meanwhile places like New Canaan , Redding etc are actually showing increases. This means simply the rich are getting richer and the middle class are getting poorer. Forget the poor areas they are just down even further.

Now for me this means I can finally afford a house up there as the towns I will look in have become more affordable. But its frustrating to watch the middle class just getting trampled in this country. Something needs to reverse the trend ...and soon.

As someone who has visited 150+ properties in Wilton, Westport, New Canaan in 3 years span I can tell you the "increases" happened because owners realized they can't sell their house if it needs any work so they put more $$$ into the home so it can be offloaded. A house near me was put on the market for $600+, couldn't sell and they took it off the market and pretty much gutted a few rooms, put in new kitchen, new toilets ++++. Now on the market in $700s range. They can probably only recoup 70% of the renovation but without that, no way in chance they can sell unless they were happy to sell to house flippers who won't offer more than $450+ for its previous state.

Apart from some prime areas in Old Greenwich and Riverside, most towns aren't doing great, its just that wealthier areas have stronger holding power than less wealthy areas. If you think "middle class" is trampled, have you considered that the rich got suckered into buying $100k+ kitchens and tonnes of superficial features into their home during pre-recession times? The middle class can always offload their properties in the mass market but what is the "rich" going to do with their over renovated, over priced, over mortgaged property without the high wall st bonus anymore? -> STUCK

The real rich (people with generations of old money fortune at their disposal) no doubt won't feel a thing but I appreciate their disproportionally significant contributions to the town's tax base and subsidize other families education.

[Cambium]

Originally Posted by jp03

Well..in starting to search for homes back in CT something is becoming noticable. The "rich" towns in Southwestern CT are showing very little depreciation in homes over the last few years while the middle class type towns are showing marked declines and it is continuing. Places from Danbury to Trumbull, even Fairfield, Norwalk and so on are showing 20 percent plus declines in home sale prices since 2007. Meanwhile places like New Canaan , Redding etc are actually showing increases. This means simply the rich are getting richer and the middle class are getting poorer. Forget the poor areas they are just down even further.

Now for me this means I can finally afford a house up there as the towns I will look in have become more affordable. But its frustrating to watch the middle class just getting trampled in this country. Something needs to reverse the trend ...and soon.

Nice observation. Nice to have you back.

Here's some interesting numbers:

Single Family homes in Norwalk sold :
2009 - 438
2010 - 506
2011 - 227 (up to June 30th)

Condos:
2009 - 222
2010 - 230
2011 - 99 (up until June 30th)

Active listings: 479
In contracts 63

As far as higher end homes... They were taking a bigger hit then average priced home because demand for them dropped drastically. I havent checked the numbers recently. Maybe they are just holding tight and not lowering anymore.

Thats the whole snowball that most home owners dont realize. You lower, neighbor lowers. Everyone lowers to attract the buyers. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

[jp03]

Originally Posted by Konig1985

As someone who has visited 150+ properties in Wilton, Westport, New Canaan in 3 years span I can tell you the "increases" happened because owners realized they can't sell their house if it needs any work so they put more $$$ into the home so it can be offloaded. A house near me was put on the market for $600+, couldn't sell and they took it off the market and pretty much gutted a few rooms, put in new kitchen, new toilets ++++. Now on the market in $700s range. They can probably only recoup 70% of the renovation but without that, no way in chance they can sell unless they were happy to sell to house flippers who won't offer more than $450+ for its previous state.

Apart from some prime areas in Old Greenwich and Riverside, most towns aren't doing great, its just that wealthier areas have stronger holding power than less wealthy areas. If you think "middle class" is trampled, have you considered that the rich got suckered into buying $100k+ kitchens and tonnes of superficial features into their home during pre-recession times? The middle class can always offload their properties in the mass market but what is the "rich" going to do with their over renovated, over priced, over mortgaged property without the high wall st bonus anymore? -> STUCK

The real rich (people with generations of old money fortune at their disposal) no doubt won't feel a thing but I appreciate their disproportionally significant contributions to the town's tax base and subsidize other families education.

Very interesting. . I was just looking at numbers frankly and sometimes that does not tell the whole story.

Overall I was astonished at the percent drops over the last 3 years in most towns. As I found out the hard way here in Carolina a 20 percent hit is typical. Some towns up there are down over 25 percent.

[jp03]

Originally Posted by Cambium

Nice observation. Nice to have you back.

Here's some interesting numbers:

Single Family homes in Norwalk sold :
2009 - 438
2010 - 506
2011 - 227 (up to June 30th)

Condos:
2009 - 222
2010 - 230
2011 - 99 (up until June 30th)

Active listings: 479
In contracts 63

As far as higher end homes... They were taking a bigger hit then average priced home because demand for them dropped drastically. I havent checked the numbers recently. Maybe they are just holding tight and not lowering anymore.

Thats the whole snowball that most home owners dont realize. You lower, neighbor lowers. Everyone lowers to attract the buyers. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

Thanks,...

I think the stabilization of homes sold is a good indicator of the fact people are slowly coming to grips with the new prices that are needed to sell. I think we will always see home sales...but its the prices that need to stabilize and they just have not been.

[basehead617]

Originally Posted by Konig1985

As someone who has visited 150+ properties in Wilton, Westport, New Canaan in 3 years span I can tell you the "increases" happened because owners realized they can't sell their house if it needs any work so they put more $$$ into the home so it can be offloaded. A house near me was put on the market for $600+, couldn't sell and they took it off the market and pretty much gutted a few rooms, put in new kitchen, new toilets ++++. Now on the market in $700s range. They can probably only recoup 70% of the renovation but without that, no way in chance they can sell unless they were happy to sell to house flippers who won't offer more than $450+ for its previous state.

Very interesting point - sometimes there is more to the story, especially in times like this with such a crazy market.

[Stylo]

Where are you getting your data? From 2006-present, overall home sales and values in wealthier towns suffered just like middle class towns.

See attachment. 2 very-slightly-above-average CT cities (Danbury and Milford) and 2 very wealthy towns. Very similar drops.

FWIW, the Y-O-Y increases in the wealthy towns are pretty unsubstantial. 1-2%. Not enough to make up for their 20-30% losses.

I work in Westport, and I can say the number of for sale signs during the last few years has been substantial.

The worst hit markets vary. In CT, I believe poor areas, and moderately high priced homes probably fare the worst (i.e $500k-$1M).

It's interesting to look at Bridgeport, which had a brutal 45% decrease.

[dazzleman]

It seems to me that in the towns with good school districts (which obviously doesn't include Bridgeport), the hardest hit were the upper end houses or upper middle houses. There definitely seems to be a narrowing of the range between the more middle class houses (or whatever passes for that in this crazy housing market) and those at the next two levels up.

In addition, it seems that the least desirable properties, whatever school district they are in, were hit pretty heavily, because their value was more severely artificially inflated during the bubble.

[jp03]

Originally Posted by mkiv808

Where are you getting your data? From 2006-present, overall home sales and values in wealthier towns suffered just like middle class towns.

See attachment. 2 very-slightly-above-average CT cities (Danbury and Milford) and 2 very wealthy towns. Very similar drops.

FWIW, the Y-O-Y increases in the wealthy towns are pretty unsubstantial. 1-2%. Not enough to make up for their 20-30% losses.

I work in Westport, and I can say the number of for sale signs during the last few years has been substantial.

The worst hit markets vary. In CT, I believe poor areas, and moderately high priced homes probably fare the worst (i.e $500k-$1M).

It's interesting to look at Bridgeport, which had a brutal 45% decrease.

Yea, I'm surely no pro at this as I just started to look. I was using Trulia to make the observation.