January Contracts: More Buyers than Sellers

Hartford County began 2017 with 636 single-family homes going under contract in January. The total represented a 4% increase over the total from January 2016. The market is currently imbalanced in favor of sellers in most price bands. Because most owners target listing their properties in the “spring market,” the number of available properties does not grow quickly in January. Buyers have been eager to start their home search this year, and are currently outnumbering

2016 Single-Family Sales by Town

The other day I posted the County level stats for sales activity and pricing. The big picture view gives a good sense of high level trends, but doesn’t provide much insight into the markets of individual towns. The reality of Greater Hartford real estate is that each town is its own market, and there can be very different dynamics at play. Here is a summary chart showing the activity and price changes in each of

2016 Hartford County Single-Family Sales Data

2016 was another good year for Hartford County real estate. It was the second year in a row that showed growth in the number of closed deals. The total number of single-family sales recorded in the Connecticut Multiple Listings Service (CTMLS) database was 8,515 (as of 1/6/2017). The number of closed sales increased by 10.6% over the 2015 total. As the above chart shows, the market has returned to the activity levels seen in the

December Contracts: Steady Finish

The Hartford County single-family market finished 2016 at almost exactly the same activity level as the previous year. The chart above shows the fourth quarter for 2015 and 2016 nearly overlapping. The vast majority of the 9% increase in 2016’s contracts, compared to 2015’s total, occurred in the first half of the year. There was modest outperformance in August, but the second half of the year was unusually similar. We traditionally only look at pricing

November Contracts: Election 2016

November 2016 finished with 656 single-family home contracts in Hartford County. It was a 5% increase over the November 2015 total, leaving 2016 about 9.5% ahead of the the 2015 pace through eleven months. As a County that voted for Ms. Clinton by a sizable margin (58% to 31%), the election of Mr. Trump could have been disruptive to the local real estate markets. We’ve been told in the past that real estate activity slows