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Economists at combined listings portal and brokerage Redfin say Hartford’s housing market appears to be “holding up best” among the nation’s top 100 metro areas last month.
“In Hartford, the housing market isn’t necessarily hot–pending sales dropped 16% year over year in February and new listings also dropped by double digits–but other metrics show that there’s still competition for homes. Among the homes that are selling, more are going under contract within two weeks than a year earlier and the median price per square foot is up 8%,” researchers wrote in a report released this morning.
Other metros in the top five: Milwaulkee, at No. 2, New Haven and Fairfield counties at third and fourth place, respectively, followed by Albany, New York.
The researchers speculate that because Connecticut’s economy is far less heavily reliant on the tech sector, neither that industry’s layoffs nor volatility in tech stocks is making buyers nervous.
February market data is not yet available, but information for January from The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record, showed the statewide median single-family sale price sat at $319,911, a 2 percent increase year-over-year. The number of single-family homes sold statewide in January was down 35 percent year-over-year to 1,614, itself a 14 percent drop from 2019. The statewide Smart MLS multiple listings service reported a 10 percent year-over-year drop in new listings statewide in January, to 1,889, along with an 18 percent slide in total numbers of single-family homes on the market, to 4,184. The number of single-family listings that went pending in January dropped nearly 22 percent, to 1,814.
Connecticut’s housing-market strength contrasts to metro areas that were market darlings during the pandemic but have since been unable to sustain their booms. Many tech-driven housing markets appear to be suffering after pricing out non-tech workers, Redfin said.
Austin, Texas, has cooled the fastest over the past year, Redfin said, followed by Seattle, Phoenix and Tacoma, Washington, with Denver rounding out the five fastest-cooling regions. Inventory in Austin is up 140 percent year-over-year, and pending sales were down 40 percent, with just 16 percent of homes going under contract in two weeks, versus 38 percent in February 2022, and its median price-per-square-foot is down 13 percent, the biggest drop of any metro area researchers surveyed. The city is “a victim of its own popularity,” researchers wrote.
In many of these markets, Redfin agents told the company’s researchers, low inventory was helping to tamp down on demand even as well-priced properties in desirable areas continue to attract multiple offers.
