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CUTLINE:Â Tim Warren, Jr., CEO of The Warren Group
Connecticut single-family home sales grew in October, recording 2,610 sales, a 9.2 percent increase over the 2,379 sales in October 2014, according to a new report from The Warren Group of Boston, publisher of The Commercial Record.
According to the report, there have not been this many single-family sales in October since 2006. However, home prices still continue to lag behind pre-recession levels.
In 2006, the median price of a home sold in October was $274,586. Last year, it was $241,600.
In October 2015, the median single-family home sales price was $235,000, a 2.1 percent decrease compared with the same month in 2014, and 16.8 percent below the median price 10 years ago. Year-to-date the median sales price is $249,000, 1.9 percent below last year”™s mark of $251,500 through the first 10 months.
Single-family median prices have been up and down across Connecticut”™s eight counties over the last 10 years, the report said.
Statewide, the median price has increased just four times in 10 years. And, in the past five years it has increased only once, despite a consistently growing volume of sales.
“The on-going decline in home prices has been modest, but puzzling given that home sales are up 14.2 percent so far this year,” said Tim Warren, Jr., CEO of The Warren Group. “Home buyers obviously like the fact that prices are still well below their historical peaks.”
In Fairfield County, year-to-date single-family home sales are up nearly 13 percent from 5,735 in 2014 to 6,474 in 2015, but as with the state, home prices have not followed suit.
Year-to-date, the median single-family home price in the county has decreased by 3 percent from $480,000 to $465,000.
Warren notes that some of the greatest gains have been in the county”™s premier markets ”” a trend also observed by Cheryl Scott-Daniels, owner of the real estate agency CSD Select Homes in Westport.
“Prices are not necessarily up in every town,” she said. “In some cases the median price is up. In some cases the average price is up, indicating a surge in higher end of the market and then in other cases consistent growth in all price ranges. It really depends on the town.”
In Greenwich, where the median single-family home price hovered around $1.4 million this October (an 82 ercent increase from a median price of 787,000 in October 2014) year-to-date single family home sales were up 19 percent from 316 in 2014 to 376 this year.
Signs remain that a rising tide lifts all boats, with areas such as Bridgeport and Monroe experiencing increases in home sales and median prices.
“Builders are still buying houses, building inventory of land for tear downs and still moving forward; that is encouraging,” Daniels said. “I think I have had more first time buyer exposure this year than maybe what I had last year or the year before.”
In Monroe, year-to-date single-family home sales leapt by 31 percent from the same time in period in 2014. Median home prices also increased year-to-date from $330,000 in 2014 to $349,500 in 2015, nearly a 6 percent increase.
Bridgeport has also seen gains, year-to-date single-family home sales grew by 14.5 percent from 351 homes in 2014 to 402 this year. The median price has also increased by more than 5 percent year-to-date from $145,000 in 2014 to $152,500 in 2014.
“It could be that we are seeing employment start to improve,” Warren said. Â “It could be that the people who struggled the most to find employment or to improve their employment situation may have been the people in the lower income categories. People talked a lot about the recession recovery being uneven ”” a lot of people felt the rich were getting richer and the poorer ”” maybe now at end of recovery they are getting their feet back on the ground.”
