Archive for the 'Housing Prices' Category
Greater Hartford Real Estate Market Statistics- Condos
I recently posted the latest real estate statistics for single family homes in Greater Hartford. Below are the latest real estate statistics for condos in Greater Hartford.
I pulled the time period of April through July (essentially the spring market) and compared 2008 to 2007. A few things to keep in mind; some towns simply have more condo complexes than others, some towns have lots of new condo construction going on while others do not, some condo stock is for 55+ owners only and I did not separate those out.
All data came from the CT Multiple Listing Service and is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed…
My takeaways…
1. If buyers are looking for a deal, they may want to focus on towns with Months of Inventory shaded yellow. These towns are all indicating a Buyer’s market (more than 6 months of inventory). However, it is still important to look at the overall inventory situation in the price range you’re interested in, as it might be somewhat different than the town’s overall condo market.
2. Months of Inventory may be understated in some cases, as new construction condos may not enter every available unit in the Multiple Listing Service, so they can’t be counted for my analysis. Sometimes a new condo complex will have only a few listings in the MLS as a random sample, even though they have many more units available for sale. This causes inventory estimates to be understated.
3. For the most part, condos are sitting much longer than they did last year. In many cases, on average, they sit for longer on the market than a single family home in the same town.
4. Median prices seem to be down in most towns as well. Part of this decline may be attributed to more newer construction selling in 2007 than 2008, therefore inflating the median price in 2007 with higher priced new condos.
Greater Hartford Real Estate Market Statistics- July 2008
The lazy days of summer are here. But at the Greater Hartford Real Estate Blog, we’re not lazy, we’re market focused! So just what the heck happened out there in July? Let’s look at the lastest real estate statistics, straight from the CT Multiple Listing Service…
My takeaways…
1. If you’re a buyer and looking for a deal, you might want to concentrate on the markets with their inventory numbers highlighted yellow. Those are all Buyer’s markets right now, based on the last 3 months of sales data.
2. If you’re a seller in Newington or West Hartford (inventory highlighted green), you’re most likely in a good position right now, Seller’s market. Homes are moving fairly quickly in these two towns, and depending on the amount of inventory in your price range, you should be able to get close to your asking price, if you’re priced correctly. Buyers in these two towns should be very aware of what’s available in their price range and be able to react quickly and with reasonable offers if they see something they like. Because if you don’t move on it, someone else will.
3. If you’re a buyer or seller in any of the towns with inventory shaded white, you’re in a Neutral market. Look closely at the competition when submitting offers and pricing your home for sale.
4. Many towns saw substantial Percentage Changes in the number of closings between July of 2008 and July of 2007. Make sure you look at the actual # Sold though. Many of the numbers are small, so small changes of a few closings sometimes translates to large Percentage Changes. Ah, the wonder of statistics. Remember this when you’re reading newspaper articles about the housing market, as they often only speak in percentage terms and not actual # of Sold properties.
Test Scores and Home Prices
Last week the results for the Connecticut Mastery Test were released to the public. The Courant has put together a nice page for quickly seeing data, while the official results website allows users to generate detailed reports.
As expected, there has been a flurry of commentary on the results for different towns. The West Hartford results are being debated on West Hartford Forums, Talk of West Hartford, and The West Hartford Blog. I’m sure that there are other places also.
Rather that rehashing what has already been said, let’s keep the focus on real estate and take a look at the relationship between test scores and home prices. Will buying a home in a town with higher median home prices provide access to better performing schools (based on CMT results)?
The above graph shows test scores for each town (average performance of eighth graders) as a function of the town’s median home prices (second quarter of 2008). It is interesting to note that test scores and median home price seems to be correlated. I’m sure there are other factors that influence the relationship. Anyone up for running a regression analysis… 