Following a mixed national report on May home sales, Fairfield County appeared to be a relatively hot market with one company tracking a nearly 60 percent year-over-year increase in sales of single-family homes.
The hard data from the Boston-based Warren Group backs up anecdotal evidence from area real estate agents that buyers returned to the market in increasing numbers this past spring ”“ and some sellers lowered prices among other concessions to cut a deal.
The median price of homes sold was up 9 percent through the first five months of 2010 to $435,000, albeit based on a very small comparison sample of nearly 600 houses this year versus just fewer than 400 homes last year.
Still, the 59 percent gain in sales this year was easily tops in Connecticut, where Warren Group tracked an overall 33 percent increase in single-family home sales. The Connecticut Association of Realtors reported similar gains in the first quarter, the most recent period for which it had posted statistics.
At press deadline, Congress was still debating an extension of the homebuyer tax credit that allows first-time buyers to claim an $8,000 credit at tax time, and other buyers to take a credit for $6,500. Under the extended homebuyer tax credit, as long as a written and binding contract to buy a house was in effect on April 30, a buyer had been given until July 1 to close on the transaction. The credit is limited to homes that cost $800,000 or less, and buyers with at least $125,000 in income get a lower credit on a sliding scale up through a $250,000 cap. Buyers must live in the home at least three years or return the full amount of the tax credit.
At the state level, in special session last month, the Connecticut General Assembly extended another year a real estate conveyance tax, but exempted those selling at a loss or in foreclosure from having to pay the tax.
If the tax credit”™s eventual expiration does not crimp demand and home sales remain up throughout the year, it would mark the first year-over-year increase in volume in Fairfield County since 2004, according to the Connecticut Association of Realtors.
“Pent-up demand from buyers who were delaying purchases because of their concerns about the economy, low interest rates and the tax credits have helped push up sales,” Timothy Warren Jr., CEO of the Warren Group, said in a statement. “But median price gains have been modest so far this year, and we anticipate very slow growth in home values during the recovery.”
Throughout the recession, White Plains, N.Y.-based Baker Residential has continued to sell and build duplexes and townhouses at The Villages at Timber Oak development on the Bethel-Danbury line, which is approved for about 340 units in total. The first-time homebuyer tax credit that recently expired helped spur sales, according to Clark Atwood, vice president and general manager of Baker Residential. The company helped its own cause as well by redesigning units for two bedrooms rather than three, bringing prices below $230,000.
With multiple boulevards complete, backhoes and bulldozers continued their work in July on new homes.
“Things today are much better than a year ago,” Atwood said. “That said, I would say there was more activity two months ago than we were experiencing today. It hasn”™t dried up completely, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we reduced the price point.”
