Single-family contracts fell to 514 in Hartford County for the month of November. The month was about 6% higher than the total from November of 2012, and the year-to-date count remains about 7% ahead of the 2012 pace.
Agents we know have commented that there were parts of November when the market seemed suspiciously quiet – like so quiet that they didn’t trust their email was working properly. Despite that, the month ended with a solid deal count, which seems like a good sign.
Barring a dramatic turn of events in December, it appears that the year will end with a modest increase in market activity over 2012. We continue to see deals come together this month, but don’t have a good sense of how active it will be. The weather and the distribution of the various holidays always seems to play a factor.
Next month we’ll take a deeper look into the 2013 full year data to see what trends emerged and what they suggest for 2014. We’ll also investigate pricing data, which we think should only be considered on an annual basis since the mix of homes sold within a particular month or quarter contains a meaningful element of randomness. Annual data also needs to be closely monitored for changes in sales mix, but with the larger number of data points the changes are more likely to mean something.