While the overwhelming majority of the County struggled through the first four months with too few listings for the number of buyers, the town of Berlin stood out thanks to its positive result (see the table at the bottom). With 13% MORE contracts than last year, Berlin was the only town that on pace to outperform 2022.
Hartford County overall finished the month with 626 contracts, more than 27% fewer than April of last year. To put that in perspective, the 626 total was also fewer than the 662 reported in April 2020 when the pandemic initially hit and it felt like everything stopped. On a year-to-date basis the County was about 25% behind the pace of deals in 2022.
Listings continued to be the bottleneck in the market. There were 641 new listings during April, continuing the trend of about a 1:1 ratio between listings and contracts. The County’s active listings total remained stable at 399. About 25% of the actives have been available for at least 90 days, and about 50% have been available for at least 30 days.
But back to Berlin, what’s happening there? They had strong months in January and April, while March was basically flat. Their 2022 year end contract totals were down more than the average town, so it looks like the town is doing well this year because it reached a stable balance between owners interested in selling and buyers interested in bidding.
Maybe whatever happened in Berlin will be contagious and spread to the rest of the County. Probably not, but it can’t hurt to hope…
