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The Connecticut housing market kicked off the new year with a huge decline in single-family home sales and only tepid home-price growth according to new data from The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record.

Only 1,614 single-family homes sold statewide in January at a median price of $319,911. Those figures represent a 35 percent decline and a 2 percent increase year-over-year, respectively.

January’s monthly single-family sales total is even 14 percent down from the number of such properties sold in January 2019.

Many of the properties whose sales closed in January of this year likely went under agreement in November or December 2022, when the average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage hit a multi-year peak at 7.08 percent according to Freddie Mac. Observers say the rapid rise in mortgage rates last fall curbed many buyers’ ability to pay and some sellers’ interest in listing, “wiping clean” the state’s inventory of homes for sale but simultaneously helping sustain tight market conditions that could support home prices this spring.

The state’s three principal housing markets – Hartford, Fairfield and New Haven counties – faced similar sales declines. Only 355 single-family homes sold in Fairfield County, a 42 percent drop year-over-year. Only 426 traded hands in Hartford County, a 34 percent fall. And 404 single-families sold in New Haven County, a 28 percent drop.

The median sale price in Fairfield County even fell slightly: by 4 percent to $525,000. Hartford County’s rose 4 percent to $280,000, while New Haven County’s rose 8 percent to $300,000.

Looking ahead, single-family inventory figures reported by Smart MLS, the state’s multiple listings service, showed a 10 percent year-over-year drop in new listings statewide in January, to1,889, 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.

The state’s three main housing markets showed similar performance.

In Fairfield County, 474 single-family homes hit the market in January, an 11 percent drop, while a total of 1,139 homes were on the market representing nearly a 20 percent decline over January 2022. The pending sales tally was down almost 26 percent, to 391.

In Hartford County, 415 single-families went up for sale in January, a 13 percent slip, and 716 such homes were on the market representing a 25 percent fall. The number of single-family sales that went pending fell 22 percent, to 442.

In New Haven County, 439 single-family houses were listed in January – down 10 percent from January 2022 – while 988 were on the market, a 10 percent decline year-over-year. Four hundred and sixty-one homes went pending, almost an 18 percent drop.