Sales activity within the Fairfield County residential market ended 2016 with something of a whimper, according to new data released by Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
During the fourth quarter of 2016, Fairfield County recorded an average sales price of $574,541, an 8.2 percent drop from both the third quarter and from the fourth quarter of 2015. The median sales price for the fourth quarter was $372,000, down 8.7 percent from the previous quarter and a 3.4 percent slide on a year-over-year measurement.
For a year-to-date measurement, Fairfield County concluded 2016 with an average sales price of $601,347, down 11.7 percent from $680,825 one year earlier, and a median sales price of $375,000, down 7.4 percent from $405,000 one year earlier. But the number of sales saw an uptick, from 10,732 in 2015 to 11,690 by the end of last year.
Also on the decline was the inventory rate: the 4,157 actively listed properties in the fourth quarter represented a 28.4 percent drop from the third quarter”™s 5,804 listings and a 27.2 percent tumble from the 5,714 listings in the fourth quarter of 2015. The fourth quarter marked the lowest inventory of any quarter tracked by Douglas Elliman in the past 12 years. As for the number of closed sales in the fourth quarter, the 2,536 transactions total was lower than the 3,321 sales in the third quarter and essentially unchanged from the level recorded one year earlier.
Within the property sectors, the average sales price for luxury residences in the fourth quarter was $2.13 million, down 6.9 percent from the third quarter and down 12.4 percent from one year earlier. The median sales price of $1.73 million was a 4.9 percent decline from the previous quarter and a 15.3 percent drop on a year-over-year measurement.
The single-family market also saw weakness in the fourth quarter: the $648,661 average sales price was a 10.1 percent fall from the third quarter and an 8.2 percent year-over-year drop. The $422,000 median sales price in the fourth quarter was 9.8 percent below the level set one quarter earlier and 2.6 percent lower than the level set one year earlier.
But there was some upward price movement in the condo market. The fourth-quarter average sales price of $352,183 was a 3.7 percent increase over the third quarter”™s $339,636 level ”“ but it was also 6.3 percent below the $376,035 level set in the fourth quarter of 2015. The median sales price of $260,000 was 1.9 percent lower from the previous quarter and 3.9 percent below the previous year.
Within Fairfield County”™s luxury submarkets, only Wilton experienced increases in both average sales prices and median sales prices on a quarterly and year-over-year measurement for its single-family and condo markets.
