Expert Advice from Amy & Kyle Bergquist at Keller Williams Legacy Partners
Hartford County finished May with 1,163 single-family contracts, a total that was in line with the past two years. On a year-to-date basis 2021 is on the fastest deal count pace since we’re been reporting stats. The market was constrained by low levels of available inventory. As of the end of the month the number of active listings had inched up to 752, corresponding to 0.7 months of deals at the recent pace of sales.
The current real estate market reminds me of something we learned in business school. The corporate world was very focused on “Just in Time” supply chain logistics when we were earning our MBAs. The idea was that the most efficient way to run a business was to hold as little inventory as possible. Minimizing inventory had the benefit of minimizing expenses and minimizing space requirements, but it depended on regular inventory deliveries. Consider water as
The 2021 real estate market is ultra-competitive for buyers in basically all price points below $700,000. Houses are regularly selling above the asking price, and in some cases well above. Our analysis of first quarter closings found that 51.5% of the single-family sales closed over asking. April was even more dire for buyers as 65% of deals closed over asking. The table below also shows that the median winning bid in the deals that closed
Hartford County finished April with 1,035 single-family contract signed, which was a respectable number for the month. Comparing the total to April 2020 is pointless because the pandemic brought everything to a halt that month. This year’s total was in line with April results going back to 2016. There was a slight increase in new listings during April, with 1,144 single-family homes entered into the SmartMLS system compared to 1,011 in March. Despite the uptick,
Hartford County finished March with 1,029 single-family home contracts signed. The total was a dramatic improvement over the February 2021 total, and a 10% increase over the pandemic-influenced March 2020 total. The first quarter of the year ended about 3.5% behind the record-setting pace of 2020. In positive news, more homes were listed for sale in March than were in the prior months. The seasonal trends in the real estate market seemed to play out