Hartford County finished the month of January with 698 single-family contracts. The total was a slight decline from January 2020, but overall a very active January market. Buyer demand for homes continued to be strong.
Unfortunately, the local real estate market has a math problem. An extended period of strong demand and a modest gain new supply (593 new listings in January) has depleted the inventory of available homes. As of February 3rd, there were only 696 active listings for sale.
Inventory is so low that, for the first time ever, we have to consider the pace of new listings to estimate when the County will run out of available single-family homes. I want to think more about how to illustrate the point, so I’m going to save it for another piece, but I’m sure you understand the basic concept.
January ended with more deals than there are remaining active listings. Since buyer demand typically increases each month through May-ish, we can reasonably expect that there should be even more contracts in February. But will there be enough properties for all those buyers to consider?
This is easily the best opportunity that we’ve ever seen for property owners to list their home. The buyers are out there, so the strategy is to maximize price by presenting the home well and launching the listing in a thoughtful manner. We can help, and have successfully sold many homes over the past year.
