Central Connecticut Housing Market Report 5.9.08
May 9th, 2008 categories: Real Estate Market
Hartford County Real Estate Market Statistics
The market in Hartford County picked up a little in April with 1299 Single Family Sales, Vs. 1103 in March.
And in comparison to last year, April 2008 wasn’t a whole lot different. The median sales price stayed at $259,900 and homes that sold in April took an average of 38 days to sell. The only difference was that sales volume was down.
And if you read the Hartford Courant on May 7, my favorite punching bag, you’ll notice that my news differs from theirs. The story, Median Sales Price Falls in Connecticut, states that
Hopes for a strong spring home-buying season in Connecticut received a blow Tuesday with a report that sales in March plummeted and that prices slid for the fourth month in a row and by the most since the mid-1990s.
The report they are reporting covers the entire state so my numbers don’t include any of the other counties in CT. But as you can see from my numbers below, the Median Home Sales Price in Central Connecticut is EXACTLY THE SAME AS LAST YEAR for both March and April.
I’ll be the first to put a link on my blog when the Courant writes a new story, saying that sales picked up in April and that prices have not dropped universally. And note to the Courant - Spring began on March 20 so technically, March’s numbers don’t count as part of the Spring Market. But who cares about accuracy?
Median Sales Price in April 2008 - $259,900
488 Sales
38 Average Days on Market
Median Sales Price in April 2007 - $259,900
576 Sales
38 Average Days on Market
Median Sales Price in March 2008 - $249,900
420 Sales
67 Average Days on Market
Median Sales Price in March 2007 - $249,000
635 Sales
64 Average Days on Market
Sales price is just one method used to analyze the market. Another is the Absorption Rate, or how long it will take to sell all the homes currently on the market based on what’s happened in recent history.
In all of Hartford County, there is 7 months of single family inventory (a little less than the absorption rate of 8 in March of 2008.
Or in the last three months, 1299 homes sold, or about 433 homes per month sold. Currently, there are 3160 homes on the market and assuming that about 433 homes will sell per month, it would take 7 months to sell the current inventory (Or 1299/3=433, then 3160/433=7, the estimated number of months it will take for a home to sell).
Generally, it is considered to be a seller’s market when there is less than 3 months inventory on the market. 3-6 months of inventory is considered normal or balanced, while anything above 6 months is considered to be a buyer’s market
Are you monitoring the trends of people moving from one house to another within the same town vs. people moving out of the state w/buyers moving in from more expensive towns or states?
Also, do you monitor market data comparables of towns with lowest to highest property tax rates & grand lists? This would be very interesting information to know.
The first would be hard to know.
The second is certainly possible - although would take a while to do since there are 169 towns in the state and mill rates change every year. I might look into it for a few towns in the area - thanks for the idea.
[…] market. This is actually down slightly from earlier in 2008 when I reported about 7 months of inventory in April. However, I think we’ll see the number jump back up in April/May when the spring market […]