Expert Advice from Amy & Kyle Bergquist at Keller Williams Legacy Partners
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.
Hartford County had an interesting month of March. Typically the beginning of the spring market, this March was characterized by a lot of buyers fighting over relatively few listings. It was more of the same – just another month in Greater Hartford real estate. There were 549 single-family contracts signed, which was about 30% fewer than the 780 from March 2022, and about 46% fewer than the 1,035 deals from March 2021. On a year-to-date
Hartford County finished February with 488 single-family contracts. The total was more than 15% below last February, and comparable to the activity level that we saw in 2010-2014. As recently noted, the bottleneck in the market is on the supply side. There are plenty of buyers, but there are not enough sellers to balance the equation. The number of contracts in a particular month has recently been closely linked to the number of new listings.
The inventory of available homes is the clear bottleneck in the Greater Hartford real estate market. Let’s take a detailed look at the number of active listings as of this morning, March 1, 2023. Hartford County has 359 single-family homes for sale as of right now. That total is the lowest that we’ve ever seen in reporting on this data since 2009. But wait, there’s more! Not more houses, unfortunately, but a more dire experience
The imbalance between buyers and sellers in 2022 led to a 9% rise in median single-family home price in Hartford County. It was the third year in a row of sharp increases, bringing the rise in median value since 2019 up to 35%. Prices rose because buyers outnumbered sellers, and demand outpaced supply. There were bidding wars for nicer homes during the busier months of the year, and most sellers with a realistic asking price