Thanks to Kerri Provost from the Real Hartford blog for providing this inspiring story.

Within a few hours of this transpiring I received an email from an agent asking me if one of my other listings for sale would do a rental. It was in the same neighborhood as the other house. So who do you think this agent was asking for? The same person, of course. I asked my seller client if they would consider renting, which I was certain they would not, and they said “no.” I was tempted to email the agent and say “Sorry, if I thought [insert name here] could have rented this house, I would have suggested it to them myself…” but just went with “No thank you, they want to sell, not rent.” No luck for this other agent hoping to assist the person either.

This is the way the market is now. Agents are trying to do whatever they can to get clients. A renter now may be a buyer in a year. I have this person’s contact info and so do at least 3 other agents, as far as I can tell. Now that person is going to have to put up with 4 agents contacting them at various points for a year. What will each of us do to distinguish ourselves from the others so that they pick us? My playbook involves low annoyance, high impact strategies. We’ll see how it goes.

It will be a battle to the finish…

When a buyer purchases a property in the Greater Hartford area, it’s supposed to be left in “broom clean condition” by the closing. That means the previous owners shouldn’t leave old paint cans, cleaning products or a host of other things behind.

Often you’ll see a seller ask a buyer if it’s okay to leave random “stuff” that they feel the buyer may find useful in the future. Leftover paint is the most common request because sellers believe buyers may want the paint to do touch ups once all of the wall hangings are removed. Some buyers will be okay with the old paint staying, while others will tell the sellers “no thanks” and ask that it be thrown away. Usually it depends on the color of the paint and whether or not the buyer plans on painting right away. Truthfully, most sellers want to leave the paint because it’s a pain in the butt to dispose of properly.

And what happens when you, the buyer, eventually become the seller of the house? Well, the next buyer is going to expect you to clean everything out. I’ve run out of fingers counting the number of times I’ve heard a seller client say “But the person I bought the house from left this for me, why can’t I just leave it for the new buyer…” The leftover mess from the previous seller now becomes your problem because you never dealt with it, or probably used any of it.

If you’re a buyer, think long and hard about the items if a seller asks you if they can leave some things with the home. You’re going to be responsible to remove it in the future, so if it really isn’t of any value to you and you don’t see yourself ever using it, make sure you have the seller take it away before the closing. Otherwise it will become your problem a few years down the line before the closing of your sale.

My advice to buyers is always: If you’re a serious buyer and interested in a house, put in an offer. If you don’t think the house is worth the asking price, offer something lower. You’ll never know how negotiable the sellers are unless you put in that first offer.

That’s the difference between window shopping and buying a house.

Have you thought about which town you might want to move to – where to put down roots? Greater Hartford is made up of lots of small towns that each have their own character, strengths and weaknesses. The challenge is that what may be a strength to one buyer is a weakness to another.

If you have a job lined up, then I’m sure that your future coworkers have been generous about sharing their views on where you should live. People are very opinionated on that subject. You’ll quickly realize that they’re advocating for the town/area that they live in. And that they’re also warning you about towns/areas that they know very little about other than what “people say.” Unless they know you pretty well, it’s probably best to do your own research – how do they know what you will like?

How do you research different towns? I’m glad you asked. We help people relocation to Greater Hartford regularly and have some suggestions.

The best way to check out a town is to come visit.

Drive around the business district(s) and neighborhoods to get a sense of what they are like. Walk the streets at different times of the day to see how you feel. It’s interesting to see how people respond to the different towns when we take them on a tour. Most have a mental image of what kind of town they want to live in – they don’t know how to articulate it well but they know it when they see it.

Another important step is to investigate the expenses and amenities of each town.

On the expense side, how do the property taxes compare to other towns? Almost all the towns in the area can be compared on an apples to apples basis using mill rates. The City of Hartford cannot because it uses a dramatically different tax system than everyone else. The Town of West Hartford, at the time of this writing (Jan 2012), is also tricky because of a frozen phase-in that will hopefully be resolved by Jul 2012.

Connecticut has motor vehicle taxes at the town level. So you will be taxed on the value of your car in addition to the value of your home.

On the amenities side, you can check out the parks and libraries they have, whether they do curbside trash, recycling, and/or leaf collection, how the schools are organized and perform. You can also research crime statistics for the community.

Finally, you’ll need to figure out if the town has the kind of housing you’re looking for.

To get there, you’ll need to do some thinking on your own.
- What kind of environment you like – urban, suburban, rural?
- Do you want a single-family home, or would you consider a condo or multi-family?
- Are you interested in historic, or more architecturally ornate homes?
- Would you prefer a newer, more energy efficient home?
- What are you hoping to have for a commute?
- Are there other criteria that are very important to you?

Greater Hartford has just about everything out there. Knowing what you would ideally like to find will help narrow the options quickly since each individual town has different housing types.

The quick way to sort through the different towns is to work with a real estate agent, like us. We’re happy to take some time to tour the different towns with you – show you the highlights and provide some commentary. We can also tell you which towns to look in for your preferred type of home.

Congratulations on moving to Greater Hartford … just let us know if we can help!

Last week we looked at the really big picture transactions data for Hartford County in 2011. The main concern we had with how the numbers turned out was that the average single-family home price appeared to rise slightly from 2010 to 2011, which was not what we saw in the market on a house by house basis.

There is no easy way to track the price trends in a region because every house is unique. Repeat sales is the best method I know of, but it’s too hard for us to use. Anyway, we were talking averages in the post. Our hypothesis as to why the average might be misleading in this case is that averages can be influenced by a change in the mix of homes that sold between the two years. They are especially susceptible to sales of expensive homes since one million dollar property contributes as much to the total sales volume as five $200,000 homes.

The first step we took to test our hypothesis was to look at how the mix of sales changed between the two years.

The chart shows that the number of sales increased in the sub-$100,000 price band and also in all three price bands above $500,000. It also shows that the $100,000s remained almost exactly the same. Finally, the number of deals in the $200,000s fell by about 20%, while both the $300,000s and $400,000s fell by about 12%. The chart confirms our anecdotal observation that there is was more interest in high end properties in 2011, but doesn’t address our hypothesis in a convincing manner.

What if we plotted the total sales volume for each price band instead of the number of deals? That would put each of the price points on equal footing in terms of their contribution to the average.

This chart shows that the homes that sold for less than $100,000 matter very little in the average. But otherwise the chart is not conclusive about whether the average remained the same due to prices holding steady between the two years or some other reason.

Maybe we should just throw in the towel on the average as a proxy for home prices and move over to the median. Between 2010 and 2011 the median single-family home price in Hartford County fell 3.3% from $230,000 to $222,500.

Or we can just trust our observations of the market … home prices fell in 2011.

Observations

The total number of single-family home transactions fell again in 2011, decreasing about 8% from the 2010 total. With the latest data point, activity for this type of property is about 41% off the 2005 peak in Hartford County. Last year we wondered whether we had seen a bottom in the number of deals – clearly 2010 was not the bottom.

As sales volume fell, showing a decrease in overall demand, the average sales price was apparently not changed. We don’t put a lot of faith in average prices because they are strongly influenced by the mix of homes that sold in a particular year, so we think something else is going on.

Our anecdotal experience is that home prices are still falling in all the towns and markets in which we do business. We also see more interest in higher priced homes, which will tend to inflate the average, and believe that’s why the average sale price edged up slightly. We’ll work on building the case to either prove or refute this hypothesis and share that result too.

Big picture analysis like this is never especially satisfying since we usually end up with more questions than answers. What are you guys seeing out there as you follow the markets? Michael called 2011 almost perfectly in the comments from last year’s post, so we clearly have knowledgeable readers!

Also, we have this data broken down by every single town in Hartford County. If you’re interested in a specific town, email us and we’ll send you the charts.

December is traditionally the slowest month of the year, so having it outpace any other month is a bit of a surprise. We think that the usually large snow storm, which was felt through the beginning of November, worked to push some business into the year’s final month.

This December also showed an uptick in activity compared to December of 2010. The number of homes that went under contract this past month is nearly 10% higher than the total from the previous year. It’s difficult to know how much of this observation can also be attributed to the snow storm. Our feeling is that it is not a result that we should read too much meaning into.

Results were well distributed at the town level, though not over as extreme a range as we have seen in previous months. More interesting is that the number of homes actively for sale has come down to about 6.6 months worth of inventory. It was at 7.3 months in the November report, and peaked at 8.8 months in the June report.

Inventory levels should be lower at the beginning of the year. Many sellers take their properties off the market over the holidays so they don’t have to worry about keeping their home in “show condition” and accommodating visits from potential buyers. New listings will begin to come on the market at a steady pace, and the pace will increase as we get through the winter and closer to the traditional spring real estate season.

We’re working on our 2012 real estate predictions, and will hope to have some more analysis of 2011 available in the coming weeks.

Honestly, it is not a common practice for real estate agents to fire clients. Most agents realize that this is a high stress job and do their best to provide good service to their clients. We work with all different types of people and personalities who are partaking in a large, often stressful, financial transaction. Some clients are easier to work with than others, just like you would see in any other customer service job. Agents that do well in this business are able to adapt to work with a variety of personalities and put things in perspective for people, when needed.

But there are times when certain clients do just need to be let go and told that the business relationship is not working. I have severed relationships with less than a handful of clients during my time as a real estate agent. I don’t take firing clients lightly. In each instance I thought long and hard about it, but in the end it was the right decision.

What would lead to me firing someone? Verbal abuse, for one. I had one seller client that verbally disrespected me during nearly every conversation. I have enough self respect for myself that I won’t put up with someone talking down to me. I suggested that our relationship wasn’t working and that they would be better served by someone else. I cancelled our contract and went on my way. They did hire someone else, but their home still has not sold. I hope the new agent is receiving more respect.

The only other reason I’ve found to stop working with a client is the same reason the agent above mentioned, disrespect for my time. If you’ve asked me to schedule showings for you, please show up at least remotely on time. It’s disrespectful to the seller and to me if you don’t. I’ve had a few clients that wouldn’t show up for showings and wouldn’t call me. Or others who repeatedly showed up more than a half hour late and wouldn’t even apologize. Changing your appointment times or being late every now and then is understandable. Everyone is busy. But repeatedly being a no-show or really-late-show wastes my time that I could be spending with other clients.

I have good relationships and experiences with the vast majority of my clients. I enjoy helping people and I think that shows in the service I provide. But at times a client relationship just doesn’t work. In those situations it’s sometimes best to be professional and let them know they may have a better time working with someone else. Hopefully everyone involved will have a better experience.

There are a few things to consider when selling your home in the not-Spring market.

1. Does your house show well when the landscape isn’t in bloom?

2. Are you willing to keep your heat at a reasonable level to be warm and inviting for showings and turn on numerous lights for your showings?

3. Are you willing to have your home sit on the market a little longer than it would if it were Spring?

4. Are you willing to have fewer showings of your home than it would if it were Spring?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, it should be fine for you to list your house in the late fall and winter months. Realize that there will be fewer buyers (so fewer showings) in November through February. Typically only serious buyers are looking during these months. They are not preoccupied with holidays and need to focus on finding a home for one reason or another. That can be a good thing for sellers.

Many homes come off the market in the late fall that didn’t sell during the Spring and Summer market. This means less competition for sellers that are newly entering the market. Another good thing.

I always advise my fall and winter sellers that they need to be a little more patient with the market. Most are fine with this because they’re making the conscious decision to list now, rather than wait for the Spring. Fall selling isn’t for everyone, but if you’re not the nervous type, it may be a great time to put your home up for sale.