Housing recoveries usually look like this: sales pick up momentum, price increases follow and there is a good flow of new properties coming on the market to keep up buyer interest.
The latest report from the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors paints a picture that is anything but usual. In September — and through the first nine months of the year — sales are down, but prices are up.
"It's a different beast than it ever has been before," Carl A. Lantz III, a real estate agent at Remax Premier in West Hartford, said.
Lantz has been in the business 14 years. His father, Bing Lantz ,who has been in the business since the mid-1980s, concurs, he said.
Lantz and other agents say the market is being driven by a new breed of buyers who want houses with the latest updates in kitchens and bathrooms. Those are in short supply, so when they do come on the market, they can draw multiple offers, pushing up the median price.
But overall sales are soft. Properties in less-than-pristine condition can sit for months. Buyers who do look at them are only willing to pay a price that factors in the cost of renovations. There is a concern that renovations will cost more than the house will be worth, Lantz said.
Blame the state's economy. Blame slow job growth. Blame HGTV. But one thing appears clear: there's isn't a broad-based recovery in housing.
Here are the numbers from the association's report:
The fall season can see some slowdown in home sales. But in September, closed sales of single-family houses in greater Hartford fell nearly compared with a year ago. Through the first nine months of this year, sales are down , compared with the same period last year.
The median sale price — in which half the sales are above, half below — rose in September from for the same month a year ago. The association tracks a 57-town area stretching from Enfield south to Middletown.
So far this year, the median sale price is up on a decline of in sales, the association said.
New listings — critical for giving potential buyers new options to consider — fell in September on a year-over-year basis. The inventory of homes for sale was essentially flat.
Some would-be sellers are staying put, worried they won't be able to find the right house, while others bought at the height of the market a decade ago and their mortgage balances are higher than what the property would fetch in a sale.
A broad cross-section of towns and cities still hasn't recovered from the decline in housing prices in the last recession, which lasted from March 2008 to February 2010.
The median sale price is a well-watched indicator of prices but it can be skewed by the mix of houses sold. The median does not mean that all prices — or home values for that matter — are moving in the same direction. Prices can vary widely from town to town and even from neighborhood to neighborhood.
