Archive for the 'Contracts' Category
December Contracts: Making Up For November
December single-family contracts came in at 357 for Hartford County, which was slightly higher that the number of deals that came together in November.
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.
November Contracts: Winter in New England
November is traditionally the time of year when real estate activity begins to slow. We did see a modest fall-off in deals, but it was not a big surprise, and was an average of recent results. Last year November was more in line with October than December, while in 2009 it was an even larger decrease from October than we’re seeing right now.
Perhaps winter arrived a little early this year in Greater Hartford; we all know that the snow did. Widespread power outages beginning with the storm on October 29th impacted the real estate market for the entire first week of November. Buyers were focused on other priorities and sellers’ homes and properties we in no condition to show, never mind impress. There were few, if any, showings until the weekend of 11/5 when brave buyers began to tour unlit homes with their flashlights. With the storm at the beginning of November, and Thanksgiving at the end, we were lucky to have two solid weeks during the month for real estate.
Switching over to the sell side of the equation, it feels like there is very little new inventory entering the market right now. It can be weeks between interesting new listings that match our buyers’ search criteria. November is not traditionally a popular time to put a home on the market, but it may be a good strategy in some of the more active submarkets where there are buyers actively looking. If a home shows very well, and is properly priced versus the competition (mostly listings that didn’t sell during the fall), then it should generate interest.
Homes that have been on a long time without selling probably are best served by coming off the market for a few months over the holidays. Buyers tend to tune them out over time, so laying low for a little while can work in the sellers’ favor. When sellers relist in the spring there will (hopefully) be lots of new people in the buyer pool who will be excited to go see the home for the first time.
Here are the town-by-town stats for the month of November – they are even more scattered than usual.
October Contracts: In Line With Expectations
There were 464 Hartford County single-family properties that went under contract during the month of October. Activity was closer to last year’s activity level than the 2009 level, which was influenced by a homebuyer tax credit deadline (Recall that buyers had to close by the end of November 2009, which meant getting their property under contract in October).
The County remains on track to exceed 2010′s total number of contracts. We need to have 635 homes go under contract in the last two months in order to match 2010, which is a reasonable number despite December traditionally being the slowest month of the year for contracts.
Fallout from the late-October winter storm, and the widespread power outages that came with it, definitely impacted the local real estate markets. Essentially, we had a week off as there were very few showings. That’s not to say we, or real estate agents overall, weren’t busy. As homeowners we had some cleanup to do on our property. And we spent a fair amount of time working with our sellers who had some work to do at their homes.
Once the weekend arrived we began to see signs of life. One West Hartford agent called asking to see a listing even though the home did not have power. He still did not have power at his home, and his buyer client did not have power either, but they were both ready to get back out there and look at homes again – flashlights in hand.
The market could go in one of two ways from here. Hopefully it will pick up where it left off before the storm and continue into late November, as often happens. The alternative is that buyers could just pack it in for the year and turn their attention to the holidays. This week should give us a good sense of buyer sentiment, and how likely we will be to beat 2010′s contract total.
September Contracts: A Modest Fall
Single-family contracts continued the downward trend in September, falling to 497 for the month. Through nine months of 2011, we remain on pace to finish the year slightly ahead of 2010 but behind the 2009 total.
There was a lot of interest in our markets at the beginning of September; it was a noticeable increase from the end of August and much of the summer. The rest of the month seemed pretty active too, so I’m a bit surprised to see the number of contracts come in at a lower level than August, though 35 deals (532 in August versus 497 in September) isn’t a huge number.
Looking a little deeper at last month versus this month, it appears that two towns experienced major slowdowns that nearly equal the total for the County. The number of contracts accepted in Southington decreased by 15 deals from August, while Windsor decreased by 13. Other towns also saw a less active September, but not by such a wide margin. Manchester, East Hartford, and Marborough reported decreases in the number of contracts of 8, 7, and 6 respectively. On the other side of the ledger, the town Bristol was up 7 deals and Glastonbury was up 6 deals.
Each town is its own market, and this is yet another example of how the data can vary. Below is the year over year comparison for each town in the County, showing a 12% increase in activity for September 2011 over the same month in 2010.
August Contracts: A Wash Out
Single-family contracts totaled 532 in August, a slight decline from July’s total, though an increase over August 2010′s tally – it was a summer month with sporadic activity.
Hurricane Irene passed through the County during the final week of the month, putting most of the real estate market on hold for at least three days, with some areas affected through the end of the month. We don’t know for sure how much of an impact it had, but feel comfortable saying that the number of deals would have been higher without the storm – there were essentially no showings over the storm weekend.
Interest in the real estate market seems to be picking up after the extended period of downtime caused by the storm and holiday on back-to-back weekends. It will be interesting to see how the fall market plays out this year, and ultimately how the year ends. As the chart above shows, the market is about 1.5x as busy during the warm months as it is during the cold months. It’s a noticeable difference, but there are definitely buyers making offers on homes all year.
Inventory levels decreased slightly during the month, suggesting that either the pace of deals increased or the pace of listings slowed. August showed fewer contracts than July – the pace of deals slowed – so the pace of listings must have slowed even more.
We’ve mentioned this before, but it’s something worth repeating … buyers have an opportunity to get into homes at prices well off the peak, and with very attractive interest rates. This applies to move-up buyers in addition to first-time buyers. Just give it some thought … we’ll be happy to show you what’s available.
Here’s how the month went for each of the individual towns.
