Archive for February, 2008
Seller’s Market for Homes in West Hartford?
If you live in West Hartford and are thinking about selling your home, now might be a great time to put it on the market, depending on the price point.
Am I off my rocker? You thought the sky was falling on the real estate market? Well, that doesn’t appear to be the case in West Hartford, for certain price ranges. Let’s take a look…
As of today, there are 169 properties available for sale in West Hartford (according to the Multiple Listing Service, the database real estate agents use to advertise homes for sale). There are also 75 homes for sale that currently have an accepted contract. That means there is only 2.25 months worth of inventory on the market, if you assume it takes only 30 days to close. Anything less than 3 months of inventory typically signals a seller’s market.
But let’s break these numbers down even further. Let’s look at the number of homes on the market broken down by price ranges that people usually search within…
Look at the number of homes available in the $351,000-$500,000 price range, just 21 houses. That’s nothing! It would also explain why last weekend 3 homes for sale in the $350,000 to $400,000 range in my office all went under contract in multiple offer situations.
So, if you’re thinking about selling your home in West Hartford this spring, what does this data mean for you?
1. If your house is in the $350,000-$500,000 range and your house is in selling shape right now, you might want to put it on the market now. You really don’t have very much competition and there are buyers out there looking. Open houses have been flooded in this price range the past 2 weekends. If your house is priced well and marketed aggressively, you may be able to get into a multiple offer situation. Wouldn’t that be nice?
2. If your house is in the $200,000-$300,000 price range, you have quite a bit of competition right now. Almost 40% of the market is in your price range. In order to sell your home, you’ll really need to price aggressively and be in good showing shape. At a minimum, make sure your house is neat, clean, and decluttered. Make sure it’s priced to sell. This is not a price range to try and be greedy, you’ll just increase your time on market.
3. If your house is in the $500,000-$750,000 price range, you have a “normal” to low amount of competition right now. Of the 19 homes currently on the market in the $500,000-$750,000 range, the average days on market is 98. Average days on market for all of West Hartford is 88 days. Traditionally, there are fewer buyers in the higher price ranges. This may be especially true now because jumbo mortgages are carrying higher interest rates. If your home is in this price range and you want to list now, make sure your house is in great shape and price aggressively. Also, your agent should be targeting the relocation audience that is out there. They have to buy.
4. If your house is in the $750,000-$1,000,000 price range, you have a “normal” amount of competition right now. Of the 12 homes currently on the market in the $750,000-$1,000,000 range, the average days on market is 63. Same thing holds with this price range, traditionally fewer buyers and jumbo loan rates may be discouraging some buyers. Focus on the relocation audience as well.
For some of you, sooner may be better than later when timing your house sale. If you’re in a price range with little to no competition, this is a perfect opportunity to get a quick sale, hopefully for top dollar.
Rebuilding Together- Hartford, April 26, 2008
Many people are familiar with the efforts of Habitat for Humanity, working in partnership with people in need to build and renovate decent, affordable housing. But you may not be as familiar with Rebuilding Together Hartford.
RTH’s purpose is to help low-income homeowners through home renovation and repair, which results in warmth, safety, and independence, while building better neighborhoods in Hartford. Once a year, on the last Saturday in April, they organize a major Rebuilding Day, which focuses activities on a number of homes for one day.
When I lived in Virginia, I participated in “Christmas in April,” which has become Rebuilding Together. It was a rewarding experience and I would strongly encourage you to participate in the upcoming opportunity in Hartford. I spent the day working with about 100 of my grad student colleagues revitalizing 5 homes in Charlottesville. I was assigned to one house where I painted, landscaped, and removed debris. Others built fences, installed new windows, and replaced siding. The elderly homeowner was so grateful because they weren’t physically able to do the work themselves. It was a great sense of accomplishment to know that in just one day we all helped someone regain their pride in homeownership.
This year, on Saturday, April 26th, twenty five homeowners in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Hartford will have their homes revitalized. The homeowners are 20 elderly individuals and 5 multi-generational families. More than 600 volunteers and 75 community partners will work together to make this event happen. Will you be part of it?
If you’d like to learn more about Rebuilding Together and the opportunity to volunteer on Saturday, April 26th, just click here. And remember, you don’t need to be a skilled volunteer, you just have to be a cheerful volunteer! 
I hope to see you there!
Love Thy Neighbor…Or Not
Hey, want to see your house value plummet faster than, well, the national housing market decline? Then start logging nasty comments on Rotten Neighbor, the national website where you can post nice and not-so-nice blurbs about the people next door.
Launched in July of 2007, the premise of Rotten Neighbor is “helping you find troublesome neighbors before you sign the paperwork on your new house, condo or apartment.”
So how do people in the Greater Hartford area feel about their neighbors? After searching a few Hartford area towns and finding no real substantive comments (well, one person did call for the Harford Civic Center to be bulldozed), either most people in the area have never heard of Rotten Neighbor, or most people don’t care to participate on Rotten Neighbor.
Personally, I think the premise of Rotten Neighbor is flawed because I believe they under estimate the willingness of homeowners actually telling you about their bad neighbors. Here are my thoughts…
1. Who wants to confront their neighbor via the World Wide Web? If you’re having an issue with a neighbor, wouldn’t you want to have a personal discussion with them, rather than posting inflammatory comments on an uncontrolled form of media? And if having a discussion didn’t work, wouldn’t you contact the local authorities next (zoning, police, etc.) in order to try and improve the situation?
2. People understand that “bad neighbors” will have a negative impact on the value of their home. Logically, they will probably not want to advertise this to the world and will try to deal with it privately.
3. If you have a “bad neighbor” that doesn’t maintain their yard or the exterior of their home (which will have a direct impact on the value of your home), the potential home buyer doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.
4. The website name doesn’t really advertise the fact that it’s okay to post positive comments about your neighbors. Wouldn’t this be a better overall concept? Tell people about the block parties you have, the neighborhood tag sale, your community fundraisers, etc. Think, community building rather than community destroying.
Bottom line, if you’ve got what you would consider a “rotten neighbor,” talk with them civily about what is bothering you and stick to the facts (”you have 4 unregistered cars up on blocks in your yard…”). The goal should be to improve the neighborhood, not divide it.