One thing I want to do with this Connecticut real estate blog is give people real information about their local towns. Most everything we hear on the news is national and doesn’t always apply to us. Since I'm a Realtor in northern Connecticut I usually focus on those towns surrounding me (Windsor, Bloomfield, Windsor Locks, Suffield, Granby, East Granby, East Windsor, South Windsor, and Simsbury). First, a snapshot of right now of single family homes:
What does this mean? For example, there are 152 single family homes for sale in Windsor and the average asking price is $278,784. Also, since there are 66 properties under deposit, that indicates an absorption rate of 2.3 months. An absorption rate means that if no other houses come on the market it will take that amount of time to sell the remaining stock. An absorption rate of 2.3 months is very good whereas an absorption rate of 4.8 months like East Windsor indicates it may take you a lot longer to sell your house and you will need to be more aggressive in your pricing. Any good Realtor should be able to quickly calculate your area, street, or neighborhood’s absorption rate.
Next, let’s look at sales price comparisons between the first half of 2007 and the first half of 2008. This is the information you want!
Now you can see some interesting numbers. It appears that Suffield is the real winner with an increase of 13.6% in the average sales price. East Windsor and South Windsor homes have also seen increases. Simsbury has remained nearly constant. Bloomfield and Windsor are barely lower. However, Windsor Locks, Granby, and East Granby have seen the average sales price drop much lower.
Does this mean every house in Suffield has increased by 13.6% and every house in East Granby has decreased by 23.8%? No. Every house style, size, and location is different. Different types of homes experience increases and decrease for different reasons. For example, higher priced homes in Simsbury may have lost value but lower priced homes may have increased in value so there doesn’t appear to be a real change even when there is for some. Since we are seeing a greater interest in more moderately priced homes, that is driving their market price up while the more expensive homes are in less demand. Again, it takes a Realtor who understands the local market to identify whether a house has truly increased or decreased in its market value.
When I prepare a house for the market I run a thorough pricing analysis specific to that house so the owner can have a full understanding of it’s market value. Sometimes the news is good and sometimes it is bad. However, a good Realtor will be more interested in giving you the truth than just getting your listing must by telling you what you want to hear.
