June activity in the Hartford County single family market fell slightly from May of this year, but remained much stronger than June of last year.
This year’s data shows that May will most likely be the peak of the 2011 spring market. Buyers continued to be out in force through June, though the number of deals has begun to trail off. Our next data milestone will be to see how activity holds up through the summer months.
Comparing the month to June of 2010, the number of deals is noticeably higher this year. Although the number of deals is up over 26%, much of that difference must still be attributed to the market distortions of the Federal Home Buyer Tax Credit. The chart also shows that we have once again dipped below the more relevant 2009 line, though remain at comparable levels.
Unlike last month, there is much more variation in the year-over-year comparisons between individual towns. Five towns more than doubled, thirteen showed meaningful increases, three were about flat, and seven had modest declines. It’s interesting that there does not seem to be any themes as to how the towns performed. Often there are trends related to location within the county, average home prices, or inventory levels.
Inventory levels in the County increased slightly to nearly 9 months, and differ considerably in each town. Anecdotally, it feels like homes continue to come on to the market each week, so I see inventory continuing to build even as buyer demand begins to decrease for the summer. If the data supports this observation, it could point to the direction of home prices … look for a future post on this subject.