The Hartford County single-family market continued its strong 2012 performance with an October that was more than 26% ahead of October of 2011. Year-to-date, the County is about 24% ahead of last year in terms of the total number of deals.
The Contracts Written by Month chart shows a gradual decline in market activity since the spring. Every year is different, with its own unique pattern, but this one seems pretty easy to interpret. Activity picked up quickly in the spring and remained strong throughout the year, gradually tailing off as winter approached.
Last November shows a downward dip that can be attributed to the Halloween blizzard that knocked out power for about a week in much of the county. We were (fortunately) spared the brunt of the most recent storm, so if it had any impact on the market it would have showed up in the October numbers. Our sense is that the region went into crisis prep mode on Friday 10/26 and didn’t return to business as usual until Tuesday 10/30 when the storm had passed.
We also don’t see evidence that the presidential election had an observable impact on the number of deals. Recall that the hypothesis was that buyers would be distracted by the election and the market would slow down earlier than usual. We do have clients who are very concerned about the election, and one who is explicitly waiting to see what happens before making a bid, but the Hartford County buying public in general was still out in force in October.
Current inventory has dipped below the 6 month level. We don’t remember the last time we saw it this low, and can’t find any market stats posts since the beginning of 2011 (when we began using our current methodology) with a lower number. There are multiple ways that inventory can decrease, but the most common are active buyers putting homes under contract and sellers taking their properties off the market. We know buyers are doing their part, but right now we don’t have a good sense of how the listing side of the market is faring compared to normal seasonal trends. Still, this seems like a positive indicator for the local real estate markets.