Hartford County finished July with 656 single-family contracts, 21% fewer than last July and 14% fewer than last month. On a year-to-date basis the market is about 22% behind 2022.
We’re into summertime, where deals still happen but with fewer buyers participating. Listing activity was pretty good, by recent standards, with 717 new properties. By the end of the month there were 529 homes for sale, an increase over the totals in the mid-400s that we’d reported the past two months. Increased actives and a slower pace of deals caused the inventory metric to inch upwards to 0.8 months of overall supply.
It is unclear where the listing side of the market will go next. July 2022 was the high water mark in terms of active listings in 2022 with inventory falling throughout the rest of the year. In other years the number of actives grew slightly through the end of September before beginning to decrease for the winter months.
Relatively few owners wanting to sell continues to be the primary factor limiting market activity. Higher mortgage interest rates and higher prices are impacting buyers, but buyers have continued to make strong bids in an effort to win homes despite the financial headwinds. Even though the market strongly favored sellers, it was still important to price homes correctly (which means different things in different towns) in order for sellers to attract strong interest.
