The number of Hartford County single-family homes that went under contract in January 2011 was 12% higher than the January 2010 total. Clearly, the month of snow had less of an impact on buyers than we had previously thought (January Listings Down 24% Year-Over-Year). Here’s the breakdown of how the individual towns fared.
As always, individual towns within the County performed very differently. Avon and Manchester are the first towns that jump out since both have strong increases and are generally active markets.
On the downside, Southington and Bloomfield are the only two towns that are active enough markets for the drop in number of deals to be a surprise.
The inventory numbers are also interesting. They generally start low in the early spring and grow as sellers begin to list their homes. Newington and West Hartford stand out right now since both have less than 4 months of inventory. Not quite a true seller’s market (less than 3 months), but close.
As we noted the other day, some of our buyers have been reluctant to go see homes with all the snow on the ground. Other agents we’ve spoken with have also felt the snow has been an issue. But the data shows that we’re off to a perfectly reasonable start to the year. What gives? Hopefully the current activity, plus the buyers waiting on the sideline, indicate that we’re going to have a nice spring market this year.