September Contracts: Equaling Last Year

The Hartford County single-family market kept on marching right through September. You’ll notice in the chart below that it was the 7th most active month this year. You’ll also notice that it was a busier month than every month in 2011 except May – the peak of the spring market.

There’s another interesting stat that you can’t see in the chart. The number of contracts put together in the first nine months of 2012 has equaled the total number of contract put together in all of 2011 (and exceeded the 2010 total for that matter). It has been a whole year of business in nine months. What should we do in the fourth quarter?

Speaking of the fourth quarter, our broker was talking trash the other day about how he’s already seeing the market slow down in anticipation of the presidential election. As our regular readers know, we’ve had a friendly debate on the subject over the course of the year … show us the data and we’ll believe it.

We don’t see an abnormal slowdown in September. Our view is that it seems really difficult to separate the “presidential election effect” from the normal fall slowdown. It appears that October will provide the critical data. If the October 2012 contracts number drops down to something comparable to October 2011, then we’ll be willing to discuss a “presidential election effect.” But if the current trend extends…

Inventory continues to fall throughout the County. In some towns and markets the lack of interesting homes is the biggest challenge for buyers. They’ve toured everything out there and passed, and the pace of new listings is slowing for the year. In these markets a quality home that is priced properly will still sell quickly. However, we also know of other towns that have lots of homes available, and there does seem to be an advantage for buyers. As always, real estate is a very local business.