The Hartford Courant provides an update on the housing bubble in Connecticut. "With just days to go before the official start of the spring housing market, typically the busiest three months of the year for home sales, buyers, sellers and agents in the Hartford region are adjusting to a noticeably slower market than just one year ago."

"Negotiations are getting tougher. Multiple offers are rare. Bids thousands of dollars above the asking price are gone. And pricing a house for sale has become more difficult, and far more important, in this market where the number of available homes has increased dramatically in the past 12 months."

"Dozens of real estate agents across the Hartford region said they are advising sellers that their homes could stay on the market longer than in the past few years, on average about three months longer. They also are cautioning sellers not to price their homes significantly above last year's prices."

"Susie Hatch, an agent in West Hartford. said that although inventory levels have increased, to 4,063 houses in the region in January, a 30 percent rise from one year ago, they have not reached worrisome levels. 'If it's the 1st of May and we haven't started knocking down some of that inventory then we will have reasons to be concerned,' she said."

"About a half-dozen potential buyers who toured open houses in the Farmington Valley recently said they are not impressed by the current inventory because the homes need too much updating and are still priced too high. 'We haven't walked into a house yet that we thought was in good shape for the price,' said Amy Sanford of Colchester."

"Tom Abbate, a real estate agent in Middletown pointed to a recent client who had worked with another agency to list a four-bedroom Middletown home for $390,000. The price was reduced multiple times until it reached $345,000 and it still didn't sell. Abbate recently re-listed the property for $309,000 and had more than a dozen showings in two weeks."

"'Last year I told clients that if they were unsure where to price their house, go higher rather than lower,' Abbate said. 'Now they can no longer do that. The huge price gains we saw are gone and if you overprice your house today, it is going to sit and sit and sit.'"

"The slowdown in the region's housing market is being mirrored in other cities across the country, such as New York City, and is even more dramatic in places such as Boston and San Diego."

"'Homes that are competitively priced are still getting traffic and still selling. For those [builders] who thought they could keep increasing their prices, they aren't selling or certainly not moving as fast,' said William Ferrigno, president of the Home Builders Association of Connecticut. Builders understand that the big double-digit price increases are gone and that their homes have to be priced to sell,' Ferrigno said."

"'The speculative market is drying up rapidly, and investment properties are also slowing,' said (broker) Curt Clemens Sr., in Hartford. 'I'm telling my sellers to price closer to market value based on a good market study and they will get action.'"