via The Register Citizen

By Alexander Soule | Published on April 17, 2024

With a view of Manhattan's skyline, a Park Tower Stamford penthouse condo sold on Monday for nearly two-thirds more than in 2019, the last time it changed hands. On the opposite side of Connecticut in Sterling, a small house built in 1790 went for $300,000 — 12 percent more than what the owner sought, and roughly six times what it sold for in 2013 before renovations to restore its antique appearance.

Despite a 10 percent drop in Connecticut home sales in the first three months of 2024, the real estate market showed plenty of pep in many locales as people upped their offers to beat out others eyeing the same properties.

"It's everything that's really under $2 million where you see more of the multiple bids, and certainly under $1 million," said Hope Klein, a broker in the Westport office of Riverside Realty who covers Norwalk and other neighboring towns as well. "I put a condo on in Norwalk at $529,000 and I got $681,000 — and I had 14 offers."

With too few houses hitting the market to keep up with that demand, however, Connecticut's real estate market failed to take the next step forward and return to an overall growth trajectory. About 6,330 properties properties sold in the first three months of 2024, about 700 fewer than a year earlier according to preliminary numbers from Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties.

In the 10 Connecticut cities and towns with at least 100 transactions in the first quarter, only West Hartford saw a significant increase in sales, which were up 10 percent from a year ago. At a price of $430,000, West Hartford's median house cost about $72,000 more than the equivalent property in the first quarter of 2023, illustrating how prices continue to balloon in some locales.

It is not just West Hartford and Westport that were seeing a big lift in dollar amounts. In East Haven and East Lyme, two houses sold for Connecticut's median price of $364,900 for the first quarter. That was $40,000 more than the houses priced at the median in the first quarter of 2023, a 12 percent bump.

And in Greenwich, the median house sold for $2.1 million, nearly 40 percent more than the median house of the first quarter of 2023.

"Lately, every quarter we see an increase in the twelvemonth median sale price in all our territories, and this quarter was no different," stated Paul Breunich, CEO of William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty in Stamford, in a letter to clients. "We expect that home prices will remain elevated in most markets for some time to come."

Stamford continues to lead the Connecticut market for total transactions, which were down 6 percent from a year ago to about 210 home sales for the quarter.

Real estate insiders continue to see high interest rates as holding back would-be sellers, given the mortgages many are carrying at lower interest rates that would result in them taking on extra costs with any new mortgage to finance a purchase in moving themselves. In each of Weston, Redding and Easton, a dozen houses or fewer are on the market today priced at $2 million or less.

"We're still seeing historic shortages of inventory — and that's really dependent on interest rates right now," said Joe Cafasso Jr., lead broker in the Cafasso Group affiliate of eXp Realty in New Haven.

Still, some parts of Connecticut have seen more listings shaking loose, including in Litchfield, New London, Tolland and Windham counties where houses hit the market in greater numbers than in the first quarter of 2023. That has yet to translate to an accompanying increase in sales.

Klein said buyers continue to gravitate to houses in the best condition, and are willing to pay more for the ones they find.

"You can't price a house too low, because the market will bid it up," Klein said. "When there's that many buyers compared to that many listings, it's the only way to sell."