via CT Insider

By Alexander Soule | Published on August 8, 2023

Hot off Connecticut's record mansion sale and with a few more big deals in the works, overall home prices continued to inch up in July as buyers sifted through a historically low number of properties on the market.

About 3,220 Connecticut houses and condominiums sold in July according to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties, about 1,300 fewer than in July 2022 for a 29 percent drop. Through the first seven months of 2023, about 19,750 properties have new owners, down 25 percent from a year earlier.

Far fewer houses are being listed for sale than in prior years. Brokers say that is the result both of opportunistic sellers having already cashed out during the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic boom market, and high interest rates convincing some to stay put for now given relatively low mortgage payments they make today compared to what they would get in a mortgage for any replacement home after selling.

"For buyers, it's just tough out there when supply is just so limited — and obviously, a lot of that comes out of the mortgage world and in a world where 60-plus percent of people have mortgage rates below 4 percent," said Ryan Schneider, CEO of Anywhere Real Estate whose brokerage franchises include Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's International Realty, on a conference call two weeks ago. "The biggest thing I think buyers are frustrated with is just the lack of choices out there, and it's the thing that's kind of dominating the challenges in the housing market right now."

While many properties continue to take price cuts, on average final offers are coming in above listed prices according to Berkshire Hathaway data. In July, buyers bid 4.4 percent above final listed prices on average, up a full percentage point from the average a year earlier. 

Greenwich's Copper Beech Farm grabbed headlines last week with its record price tag scraping $139 million, nearly $19 million above what it fetched just over a decade ago. The buyer has yet to be revealed.

William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty is reporting a contingent, $28 million deal in place for an Indian Chase Drive mansion at the head of Indian Harbor in Greenwich, which would be Connecticut's third biggest sale disclosed this year after Copper Beech Farm and Great Island, the latter purchased by the town of Darien for conservation purposes.

Outside of lower Fairfield County, another big sale is in the works with William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty reporting a pending deal in place for a 40-acre estate in Redding owned once by Hollywood director Barry Levinson. The current owner had sought just under $9 million, down $10 million from its original listed price in 2020.

Nearly three-dozen houses and condos sold at the Connecticut median price of $400,000 for July, ranging from a 1950 ranch in Hamden with more than 4,000 square feet of space to a small, two-bedroom fronting Phipps Lake in West Haven.

"We're seeing the biggest pressure on listings, as you would probably expect, in the mass market and the first-time homebuyer," Schneider said in late July. "