Home sales in the Hartford metro area ranked the third highest in the country in September in a new national survey released Thursday, fresh evidence of the hot housing market in Connecticut.
The Hartford metro area — which includes Hartford, Tolland and Middlesex counties — had a 33.3% jump in closed sales in September, compared with a year ago, placing it just behind the perennially hot market of San Francisco, which came in with a 34.7% increase. Billings, Montana grabbed the top spot with sales that soared 37.1%.
The survey, released by real estate giant RE/MAX, was based on a study of 53 metro areas across the country. The study combined sales of single-family houses, condominiums and townhouses.
Sales in the Hartford metro area blew past the national increase of 21.1% compared with a year earlier.
The median sale price — where half the sales are above, half below — rose nearly 15% in the Hartford metro area in September to $255,000, compared with $222,000 for the same month a year ago, according to RE/MAX.
Real estate experts in Connecticut said they have seen no slowdown in home sales that took off in the late spring, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. New Yorkers fleeing the city and at-home workers looking for more space, combined with historically-low interest rates.
Joanne Breen, president of Connecticut Realtors, an industry group, said multiple offers remain common, driven both by high demand and few homes on the market.
According to the RE/MAX survey, the Hartford metro area had a stunning, 1-month supply of homes for sale — indicating a red-hot market for sellers — compared with over 5 months a year ago, straddling a market that favored neither buyer nor seller.
This market rebound also is across all price ranges — even the higher-end homes that for years had been slow to sell — and not just the starter homes, Breen said.
“I just sold a house just under $2 million, and we were in a multiple offer,” Breen said, of the property in Avon. “There were two offers in on that house the same weekend. That, to me, is the biggest indication of how robust this market is and healthy.”
In addition to New Yorkers, Breen said she also is seeing buyers who are finding the homes that once suited them, no longer doing so with the onset of the pandemic as families work from home and deal with schooling at home at the same time.
“If you are buyer and you see a house that you think it’s perfect, it’s very likely that five other buyers do as well,” Carl A. Lantz, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker in West Hartford. “You should make the offer because it will be gone.”
The survey also found a nearly 10% jump in the median listing price, rising to $274,450, compared with $249,900 a year ago.
Real estate agents said condition, location and pricing still play key roles in how quickly a property will sell, but even homes that aren’t necessarily in tip-top condition are getting a second look.
Until this spring, Connecticut had been plodding along as it dug out from a sale price downturn from the last recession more than decade ago. That may be another reason why Connecticut is seen as attractive to homebuyers because it hasn’t seen the price appreciation of, say, a Massachusetts.
Breen said she sees a strong market continuing through the fall and well into next year. There were signs early in 2020 that the market might take off, but the first throes of the pandemic stalled the move, but it was just temporary, she said.
Breen cited economist forecasts that the Fed will keep interest rates low through next year to aid in the nation’s economic recovery.
“I think that’s going to keep the real estate very active for us,” Breen said.
Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.
