Home sales in greater Hartford rose for the fifth consecutive month, but prices fell the most of any month so far this year, a new report shows, on year-over-year basis.
The median sale price of a single-family house dipped 3.5% in September, to $221,000 from $229,000 for the same month a year ago, according to the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors, which tracks a 57-town area from Enfield south to Middletown.
The median price — in which half the sales are above, half below — has fallen in five of nine months so far this year.
In September, sales of single-family houses rose nearly 3%. Sales have risen each month so far this year except in February.
Carl A. Lantz, the association’s president and a real estate agent at Remax Premier in West Hartford, said Monday sales likely rose in the face of a falling median price because more sellers are accepting sale prices more in line with the slowly recovering market.
But sales also are still being held back because the legislature has failed to pass a budget, Lantz said.
"It's hard to pull the trigger on a house if you don't know if your property taxes are going to be $7,000 or $9,000," Lantz said.
Lantz said the latest budget compromise between Democratic and Republican lawmakers does restore education aid to towns and cities, although the specific amounts for each municipality have not been announced yet. But the elimination of the car tax leaves towns and cities few options for making up the lost revenue.
"The only place they can make it up from is property taxes," Lantz said.
Inventory — the number of homes on the market — tightened again in September, plunging nearly 23% compared with the same month a year ago. New listings were flat in the same period and the average number of days it took to sell a house rose from 63 to 71.
A tightening inventory typically leads to sustained price gains but, so far this year, significant overall increases have yet to take place.
Through the first nine months of the year, sales of single-family houses are up about 3%. The median sale price rose just shy of 1%, buoyed on the upside by a strong gain in the month of March.
In 2016, home sale prices in greater Hartford rose for the first time in three years, which economists and real estate agents took as a hopeful sign of upward momentum leading into this year. Over the past decade, Connecticut has struggle to recover from the last housing recession.
Greater Hartford could still squeeze out a price increase although it would be razor-thin, based on the association’s latest report.
A separate report from Connecticut Realtors shows the median sale price of a single-family house statewide slid 1.6% in September, to $249,950 from $254,000 for the same month a year earlier. Sales declined 7%.
The overall price and sales numbers do not mean that all towns and cities are experiencing the same conditions. The housing market can vary widely from town to town and even neighborhood to neighborhood.
But the overall sales figures and the median price are considered a good indicator of broader trends in the housing market.
