Reports find home and condo sales on the rise throughout state

A pair of new reports indicate that home sales throughout Connecticut are on the rise ”” good news for a state still feeling the effects of the Great Recession.

“Falling prices and increased sales have been the trend in Connecticut for over two years now,” said Timothy M. Warren Jr., CEO of real estate sales and ownership data firm The Warren Group. “Clearly there”™s a strong demand for housing, and residents are snapping up deals all over the state while prices remain below the peak of a decade ago.”

Per Warren, single-family home sales in the state increased 29.9 percent in February, with 1,788 single-family homes sold compared with 1,376 sold in February 2015 ”” making this year’s figure the highest sales mark since February 2007, when 1,860 homes were sold. Year-to-date, sales were up 27.6 percent with 3,509 transactions compared with 2,751 during the same timeframe a year ago.

The median price of a single-family home fell by almost 1 percent in February to $222,750 compared with $224,900 a year ago. In the past 24 months the median price has increased only once, in March of 2015 when it showed a 3.1 percent increase. Year-to-date, prices increased by 1.3 percent to $228,000 compared with $225,000 during the same time a year ago.

The Warren Group also reported that condominium sales statewide posted an 18.2 percent gain, to 493 condos sold in February 2016. Year-to-date, condo sales were up 17.5 percent with 929 condos sold compared with 793 during the same timeframe last year. The median sale price for condos in February posted a slight decrease of almost 2 percent, falling to $150,000 from $153,000 in February 2015. Year-to-date, prices fell by 6 percent to $150,000 compared with $159,500.

In the meantime, global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider CoreLogic released its Home Price Index and HPI Forecast data for February 2016, showing that home prices are up both year over year and month over month.

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 6.8 percent in February 2016 compared with February 2015 and rose month over month by 1.1 percent in February 2016 compared with January 2016, according to the CoreLogic HPI.

Per its HPI Forecast, CoreLogic predicts that home prices will increase by 5.2 percent on a year-over-year basis from February 2016 to February 2017, and on a month-over-month basis home prices are expected to increase 0.6 percent from February 2016 to March 2016. The HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

In the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area, CoreLogic reported that home prices including distressed sales were up 4.6 percent in February 2016 compared with February 2015. On a month-over-month basis, home prices including distressed sales fell by 0.1 percent in February 2016 compared with January 2016. Connecticut as a whole saw home prices up 2.9% on a year-over-year basis.

The firm said its bullish outlook for the housing market is due to fixed-rate mortgage rates dropping more than a quarter of one percentage point during the first three months of this year, with a concurrent 209,000 jobs created. “These economic forces will sustain home purchases during the spring and support the 5.2 percent home price appreciation CoreLogic has projected for the next year,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic.

“Home prices continue to rise across the U.S. with every state posting year-over-year gains during the last 12 months,” added CoreLogic President and CEO Anand Nallathambi. “Improved economic conditions and tight inventories continue to drive exceptionally strong gains in many markets, especially for homes priced below $500,000.”