iStock illustration
Home sellers in two Connecticut metros were among those enjoying the highest annual increases in gross profits in the United States this past year, and it’s partly because they’ve held onto their homes the longest.
Greater Hartford and Fairfield County took tenth and ninth place, respectively, to round out real estate data firm ATTOM’s rankings of the top 10 metro areas nation-wide. Its analysts said a Hartford-area homeowner who sold last year saw an 18 percent bigger gross profit on their home compared to someone who sold in 2023. In Fairfield County that jump was 18.3 percent.
One reason: Connecticut is home to some of the longest-tenured homeowners in the nation. The longest tenures for home sellers in the fourth quarter of 2024 were on Cape Cod in Massachusetts (13.6 years), Fairfield County (13.23 years), the New Haven metro (13.05 years), Ventura, California (12.85 years) and Greater Hartford (12.69 years).
In 2012, the median Hartford County single-family home sold for $214,000 according to The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record. In 2011, the median Fairfield County home sold for $459,000.
Through Nov. 30, the most recent data available, the median Hartford County single-family sold for $360,000 and the median Fairfield County single-family sold for $708,250.
ATTOM analysts said that the typical American home seller made a $122,500 profit in 2024, generating a 53.8 percent return on what they paid for their home originally. This is a decrease from the 56.9 percent return enjoyed by people who sold homes in 2023.
“After a weak 2023, the U.S. housing market mostly rebounded nicely in 2024. Prices went back up at a healthy clip and homeowners continued to make some of the best profits on sales in the past 25 years. The renewed shine, however, didn’t come without a bit of tarnish as margins took another turn for the worse,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said in a statement. “Amid the generally good news, that’s something worth following closely in 2025.”
The trends are concerning as this is the second straight year of annual decline, ATTOM analysts said. Such a continued trend downward hadn’t happened since the aftermath of the Great Recession.
