‘Speculative Market Drying Up Rapidly’ In Connecticut
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.’”
“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.”
Like almost everywhere else we discuss here, the Connecticut sellers have not adjusted their asking prices down to align with the new market reality…
I saw a house my wife and I really liked — we would move in and not leave for 30 years. We bid above list and our bid was not accepted. Same crap is still going on. Going to take a long time.
House referred to above was in Glastonbury, CT (Hartford County)
You may as well begin the hand wringing now.
fast forward to May 1 -
If it’s the 1st of July and we haven’t started knocking down some of that inventory then we will have reasons to be concerned,’ she said.”
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“If it’s the 1st of 2007 and we haven’t started knocking down some of that inventory then we will have reasons to be concerned,’ she said.”
Wait until after the superbowl (2007)! Then things should really pick up!
I thought the spring buying season started after the superbowl????
‘“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.”
c’mon ben - throwin’ this at us is chumming the sharks!
4,063 houses will seem like the good old days
cereal,
Just be patience. mark your calendar to check back with Susie on May 1st.
I just went to http://www.realtor.com and checked Miami FL. Excluding land and rentals (format is 10 listings per page) there are 2,059 pages of listings. How many pages was War And Peace?
Jim — here in Northeastern Palm Beach County, FL … 80 miles or so N of Miami … my zip code tracking on Realtor.com shows 232% more listings as of today than last June, when I started tracking. Unless sales pick up dramatically, we could be looking at a quadrupling of supply (from admittedly low levels) by the time I reach the 1-year mark on the study period.
How many years worth of inventory is that?
Well, the Palm Beach Post reported this Sunday that 2,430 homes and condos sold in Jupiter, FL in 2005. My search criteria on Realtor.com is 100,000 to 500,000 sales price, at least 2 beds and at least 2 baths. I started at 150 in June 2005 and just hit 498. The OVERALL supply number is just shy of 2,000 SFH and condos/townhomes for all of Jupiter, FL (I have only been tracking one of about 4 or 5 zip codes, my own).
So long story short, it looks like roughly 10 months of supply. And that’s not including FSBOs, of which there are many. Or all the new houses hitting the market. And that’s also using 2005 sales numbers, which were huge. As recently as a couple years ago, before the boom went nuts, sales were running at about 2,000 (again, using Post stats). So that means we have about a year’s worth of supply listed. And the numbers keep going up every couple of days.
20% haircut leads to more interest but still hasn’t sold.
Forget about spring; it’s going to be a long, cold winter for RE.
Since we have market value, sellervalue, buyer value, forclosure value, appraisal value,lender value, flippervalue, rentalvalue, replacement cost value ,gold fever value , future value, fix up value , and just plain no value ,…………How is one going to determine price now that the market doesn’t know.
Oh … I forgot panic value
That’s the nature of unstable markets! Value is harder to assess. Best to stick to investment fundamentals. Or if you plan to move in and stay, consider the tradeoff between buying now and waiting a year for a 20% reduction.
If I was a seller in this falling-knife phase, I would start my listing at 10% below recent comps then lower the price 10% per week until the place sells.
I’m out. I just signed a 2 year lease on a 1700sf apartment. 2 bed rooms, 2 full baths, 3 walkin closets, walk in pantry, linen closets in both bathrooms, storage closet, washer, dryer, tile floors in kitchen and batrooms, refrig, garbage disposal, dishwaser, south facing sliders in breakfast area, patio, bedroom and living room windows all facing the golf course, end unit, garage, trash pickup, 24 hour maintenance, Cenral AC, Direct TV, wall to wall carpet, pet friendly, on site fitness center, indoor pool, community center, 20 minutes from my work. Was $1800 a month. Reduced to $1600 a month and one month free rent, and pet fee was waived. Go try and buy that.
See you guys in 2 years.
where?
you sold?
no details?
Wow. If you offered that deal where I live (Canberra Australia), you would be trampled underfoot by the potential tenants.
I didn’t sell. I just got tired of looking for a house.
I moved in here.
http://www.avalonpinehills.com/apartments.html
Yes
the housing bubble here in CT has halted. Spoke To a realtor today- honest and pleasant- said that many are having a hard time buying because of the rapid rise in prices in Connecticut- and that is surprising-since for most of the state housing is not extremely over valued outside of toney Fairfield county- which has been pricey forever.
Houses prices may be higher in Fairfield County than the rest of the State but that doesn’t mean they are more over priced, just more expensive. How overpriced houses are is relative to rental prices and the income of the residents.
Most of Fairfield county consists of high end towns with very good school systems whose residents often commute to high paying jobs in Manhattan unless they are commuting to high paying jobs in Stamford or Greenwich (lots of hedge funds in Greenwich).
Most cities in Connecticut are rather run down (with the exception of Stamford in Fairfield County) and household incomes are much lower outside of Fairfield County. Office rents are much lower to. Office space in Greenwich costs more than Downtown Manhattan and is similar to Midtown.
Just an observation. The photos I see of all the RE signs, banners, ballons is not indicative of a crash, they are indicative of the top of the market. When housing bottomed back in the ’80s the images were of VA and FHA reposession signs. I have said this before, you will not get a good deal from a speculator or flipper. You must wait for the foreclosures. If you want to speed the crash along do not buy their used boats and cars, this will only enable them to hold out longer. Things are going to get worse, look for the signs. Rummage sales, garage sales, cars sales. Some of the younger people are impatient, that is how the older people win. You cannot play their game by their rules and expect to win. Patience has its own rewards.
I made that same point about younger people. They are going to be the next bagholders. The ones who won’t wait.
when I was near hartford I’d noticed they had stuck houses anywhere they could in a town I hadn’t been in in almost 5 years.
John Law
your observations are correct to a degree. Over in Manchester, they are building-or have just completed condo townhouses, right next to I 84!
40 units built priced from 205-240K- 1500 square feet; the ones for 240 have hardwood floors, crown moldings, tile, 2 baths with skylights, granite, stainless steel appliances etc- not bad for the price- but the location is horrible. Very disconcerting to hear the rumble of a few tractor tralier trucks at 2 AM- and McMansions being buit in Ellington starting at 399K, also in South Windsor, Hebron, Willington and even land empty Manchester.
Same in Fairfield and in Bridgeport - huge condos being built and more developers submitting plans to P&Z, just next to I95 AND the Metro-North railroad. Noise Central. Asking price: from 300k to 1 million. who would want to pay 1 million to live in a condo on the Fairfield kings highway cutoff is a mystery to me… speculators? retirees? Yuppie singles who work in Stamford? No clue…