where are CT homebuyers paying above asking price for middle-market properties in 2025? these towns.
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By Alexander Soule | Published on February 17, 2025
In Stamford and West Hartford, home buyers continue to pay more than what sellers are asking just as the spring market looms larger — but buyers are chipping away at prices in some other Connecticut cities and towns, according to Zillow transaction records.
Across the dozen busiest cities and towns for home sales last year, CT Insider analyzed transactions in the first six weeks of 2025 where final closing prices were within 25% of last year's median prices in each of those markets.
In Stamford's middle-market range of home sales between between $516,000 and $806,000, seven of every 10 transactions resulted in sellers getting at least 2% more than what they listed their homes for originally — equating to at least $10,000 more for those sellers.
Across the dozen markets analyzed by CT Insider, home prices within 25% of the median ranged between $200,000 and $312,000 in Waterbury on the low end, to a high of between $1.8 million and $2.8 million in Greenwich.
West Hartford had close to an even split between offers over the asking price and those at break-even or below for the homes sold within the range of $392,000 and $613,000. But with a pair of sales in excess of $100,000 over asking prices tipping the scales, the town's average margin was the highest of the cities and towns on the list analyzed by CT Insider, at 2.9% above asking prices, on average.
West Hartford has led Connecticut in the past in calculations by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New England Properties of sales-to-listing ratios, but the Wallingford-based brokerage bases its calculations on deviations from the most recent listed prices for homes. That does not factor in prior price cuts from original listed prices, as analyzed by CT Insider.
One above average West Hartford property sale was on Ellsworth Road, which drew 28 bids after going on the market in mid-January at a listing of $375,000, with more than 100 would-be buyers signing up for tours. The house had been in the same family for three generations dating back to 1930 and needed significant renovations, according to Margaret O'Keefe, a Coldwell Banker broker who represented the family.
The winning bid of $525,000 came from a familiar face — a neighbor a few doors over, who wanted the fixer-upper for a parent, paying a 40% premium to beat out the competition and make that happen.
"A combination of people looked at it — some were older people who wanted to downsize and this house was something they could redo completely," O'Keefe said. "You want to price it competitively and then get a lot of offers."
Alisia Ceddia, another Coldwell Banker broker based in Milford, noted that transactions early in the year often capture people who spent the holidays house hunting, a sacrifice of time and effort that in some instances sways them to stretch the budget to get a deal done. Ceddia was the listing broker on an Oronoke Road condo in Waterbury that sold for $18,000 more than its listed price after hitting the market in early December.
"Many agents delay listing properties between Thanksgiving and Christmas because of a perceived notion that people stop looking for new homes during the holidays," Ceddia told CT Insider. "What they don't take into consideration is that those who are looking are very serious buyers. Couple even less inventory than normal with highly motivated buyers, and you create the opportunity for very aggressive offers in a market that might not typically demand them."
While home flippers and fixer-upper opportunists will often pay over asking price for properties, condition is a major consideration for many others to sway them to go over asking price, said Scott Bayne of Century 21 Bay-Mar Realty in Bristol.
Bayne represented the sellers of a Prospect Street house in that town which sold for $70,000 above the sellers' original asking price of $270,000. That was a 26% premium after it went on the market last Thanksgiving, with the purchase closing at the end of January. Bayne told CT Insider the unit had been fully renovated and was "move-in ready" in his words, creating a bidding war for year-end buyers still on the hunt at that point in Bristol.
While Bristol had a majority of middle-market transactions going for at least $10,000 above asking prices, another 10 sold for that big of a discount from their original asking prices. Other cities and towns saw similar discounts as well, including Greenwich where buyers often win concessions from sky-high original asking prices.
In Norwalk, four sellers got nowhere with their original listed prices between $775,000 and $880,000 with buyers getting reductions of at least $150,000 in each of those transactions.
In Hamden where the median range was between $268,000 and $419,000 — within the affordability wheelhouse for many New Haven-area house hunters — 14 buyers garnered sale prices at least 2% below original asking prices, versus eight who paid more than 2%.
And in Danbury which had strong momentum in its real estate market last year, a pair of Hillandale Road ranch-style houses illustrated both ends of the equation, with one selling for $75,000 above what the owner listed it for, and the other changing hands at a $20,000 discount.
Across price brackets, Helene Daly told CT Insider she continues to see "shut-it-down" offers for Fairfield properties where she is a broker with Compass, with cash-flush buyers aiming to brush rival bidders aside with big offers. That includes an Evelyn Road transaction where she represented the seller.
"We were asked by two buyers, 'what will it take to shut down the showings and secure this deal?'" Daly said. "The sellers ... threw out a number which one buyer agreed to and the other one went even higher. Deal done."