[AmyBergquist]

I know lots of you are curious about real estate data for the area. Here's results from last year for several Hartford area towns. All data comes from the CT Multiple Listing Service and is for single family homes only...



My observations…

1. The number of closed sales was down in every town but one. Newington saw a 1% increase in the number of closings when comparing 2008 to 2007. In the aggregate, the towns surveyed were off by 17% from the number of 2007 single family closings. That is fairly significant, as this number does not additionally take into account the people that unsuccessfully tried to sell their homes, only to give up and pull them off the market.

2. Median sale prices also declined in all but two of the towns surveyed. West Hartford saw no change in the median price and Simsbury actually saw a 4% increase in their median sale price. I was surprised to see that price declines were not worse than 10% in most cases. Only 4 towns saw median prices decrease by 10% or more; Avon, Manchester, New Britain, and Vernon. Not fantastic, but we’re also not anywhere near the price erosion that’s happening in Miami, Las Vegas, Phoenix, or California.

3. Days on Market really did not make any drastic changes. In the worst case, the Average Days on Market increased by 2 weeks. This is fairly insignificant in the scheme of things.

4. While the number of closed sales and median sale prices are down in almost all of these towns, only 3 of the towns surveyed are currently Buyer’s Markets. Avon, Canton, and Farmington all have over 6 months of housing inventory, which is typically an indication of a Buyer’s Market. The remainder of the towns have 6 months of inventory or less, indicating that they are Neutral Markets. West Hartford, Newington, and New Britain are actually fairly close to being Seller’s Markets, with just around 3 months of inventory. Zero to three months of inventory typically denotes a Seller’s Market. There are a few reasons why there are so few Buyer’s Markets right now, given the fact that sales and prices are down; fewer people could be deciding to sell and we’ve worked through some of the fall/winter inventory on the market as we wait for the Spring Sellers to enter the game.

[CrissCT]

Any data for Burlington? The assessor is trying to say home values are up and we don't buy it..

[AmyBergquist]

Prices are off 9.9% in Burlington for 2008 compared to 2007. Data from the CT MLS...

2007
Median Price $382,500
Houses Sold 122

2008
Median Price $344,450
Houses Sold 122 98

Median price change is -9.9%, number of houses sold change is -19.7%

I actually just talked to someone in Avon about the same thing this morning. Take the opportunity to fight your assessment. If you know an agent from your area, have them pull recent comparison home sales for you that you can take to your "discussion" with the town. They'll only respond if you have actual data.

[CrissCT]

Thanks Amy. Yes we are challenging our new assesment. Ironically, we just bought the house in August (so one of our comps is our own home) and they are trying to say we underpaid for the house.

[whome224]

Where can one find this information from the CTMLS--particuarily single family homes in Fairfield County towns? Thank you for providing this information.

[Rich Lee]

Originally Posted by whome224

Where can one find this information from the CTMLS--particularly single-family homes in Fairfield County towns? Thank you for providing this information.

Greater Fairfield County REFUSES to become part of the Statewide MLS. Therefore, there is very little data on those towns unless the listing broker and agent belonged.

You could try www.ct-mls.com. Then go to General Info => Market Watch Reports.

NOTE: I belong to both.

[AmyBergquist]

Originally Posted by CrissCT

Thanks Amy. Yes we are challenging our new assesment. Ironically, we just bought the house in August (so one of our comps is our own home) and they are trying to say we underpaid for the house.

That's one of my favorite games that the towns play. I had the same thing happen to some clients last year in Simsbury when the town reassessed. They were assessed at about 10% more than they paid. They were able to sucessfully argue down the assessment to their purchase price. Hopefully you'll be able to do the same.