Connecticut home sales surge
Market heated up throughout state in 2020 as pandemic sparked change
Hartford County’s hot housing market in 2020 was spread throughout the region with few exceptions, as the pandemic forced many to work from home and urban dwellers in New York City and elsewhere sought homes in less-crowded places.
Hartford County’s hot housing market in 2020 was spread throughout the region with few exceptions, as the pandemic forced many to work at home and urban dwellers in New York City and elsewhere sought homes in less crowded places.
An analysis by The Courant of data provided by SmartMLS, Connecticut’s statewide multiple listing service, shows that two-thirds of the county’s 29 towns and cities had double-digit percentage gains in single-family home sales compared with 2019. All but five saw some increase, with only one town, Windsor Locks, experiencing a double-digit decline.
The top 10 municipalities, led by Burlington with nearly a 50% increase in sales, all had few single-family houses on the market. Buyers were forced to pounce and, in most cases, paid at or near the asking price, sometimes more.
Across Hartford County, sales of single-family houses in 2020 rose 14.3% compared with a year earlier, SmartMLS data shows. The median sale price — where half the sales are above, half below — rose 10.5% to $257,000, according to SmartMLS.
“COVID-19 gave people an entirely new perspective on the importance of family, home and a critical work/life balance,” Michael Barbaro, board president of SmartMLS, said. “And whether that meant trading apartment life in the cities for a house with a yard, or simply moving to a home that better suited their new normal, Connecticut was a natural fit.”
The surge in sales was particularly eye-catching when the state had been struggling to regain its footing after the 2008 recession.
Carl A. Lantz III, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Realty in West Hartford, said low mortgage rates combined with a surge in demand by buyers seeking new houses to accommodate work-at-home lifestyles
and, to some extent, those fleeing urban metropolitan areas like New York City.
But the pipeline of houses in Hartford County coming on the market did not match demand. Would-be sellers were enticed by a market where appropriately priced houses were selling at or above list price. But some remained on the sidelines worried they wouldn’t find another house in time and perhaps be forced to move twice, once from a temporary space, Lantz said.
“The market conditions that we are seeing now — as far as I’ve seen — I’ve never seen before,” said Lantz, whose family has been in the real estate business for four decades. “So you had a dip interest rates, a dip in inventory and then a huge increase in demand.”
Among the top 10 municipalities, inventory ranged from 1.4 months to 2.4 months, extremely tight when considering a market is said to favor neither buyer nor seller at a six-month supply.
In January, Lantz said there are typically about 200 single-family houses on the market in West Hartford. There are days, he said, there may be 40 or fewer.
All the ingredients were in place for a “feeding frenzy,” as one real estate agent described it, when a property does come on the market, an atmosphere that is expected to continue well into 2021.
These are the towns that made the top 10 list for single-family home sales in 2020, based on percentage gain compared with 2019:
1. Burlington
Single-family home sales: 211, up 49.6%
Median sale price: $355,000, up 12.7%
Percentage of listing price received: 98.8%, up 0.9%
Population: 9,568 Median household income: $121,635
Months supply of inventory: 2.4 months, down 51%
One thing to know: The Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery, dating to the late 18th century, is known as the “Green Lady Cemetery” because of reported sightings of a ghostly woman who drown in a swamp in 1800 and was found wearing a green dress.
2. Marlborough
Single-family home sales: 139, up 39%
Median sale price: $288,700, up 8.9%
Percentage of listing price received: 98.6%, up 0.4%
Months supply of inventory: 1.6 months, down 68.6%
Population: 6,268 Median household income: $110,250
One Thing to Know: In the 1880s, Mary Hall, a native of Marlborough, became the first woman in Connecticut to practice law, after a groundbreaking decision by the state Supreme Court allowed women to be admitted to the bar.
3. East Windsor
Single-family home sales: 150, up 36.4%
Median sale price: $281,250, up 19.2%
Percentage of listing price received: 100.1%, up 1.3%
Months supply of inventory: 1.7 months, down 67.9%
Population: 12,650 Median household income: $75,056
One thing to know: In the early 1800s, Solomon Ellsworth Jr. was digging a well near his East Windsor home when he found bones that would later be identified as belonging to a dinosaur. Solomon’s find would help fuel the dinosaur discovery craze later in the century.
4. Farmington
Single-family home sales: 292, up 32.7%
Median sale price: $385,000, up 12.2%
Percentage of listing price received: 97.7%, up 1.2%
Months supply of inventory: 2.1 months, down 51.2%
Population: 25,422 Median household income: $94,785
One thing to know: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established its first Connecticut temple in Farmington in 2016.
5. Granby
Single-family home sales: 214, up 29%
Median sale price: $320,000, up 5%
Percentage of listing price received: 99.3%, down 0.5%
Months supply of inventory: 1.5 months, down 78.3%
Population: 10,951 Median household income: $111,220
One thing to know: Granby is easily found on a map because of its notch in the northern border with Massachusetts, the result of a 150-year boundary-dispute settlement.
6. Bristol
Single-family home sales: 792, up 29%
Median sale price: $215,000, up 16.2%
Percentage of listing price received: 99.5%, up 1%
Months supply of inventory: 1.4 months, down 61.1%
Population: 59,535 Median household income: $64,586
One thing to know: Bristol is home of Lake Compounce, the oldest continuously operated amusement park in the country. But it also has earned the nickname the “Bell City” because it once was a center of springdriven doorbells.
7. Newington
Single-family home sales: 361, up 26.2%
Median sale price:
$242,950, up 4.6%
Percentage of listing price received: 99.8%, up 1.6%
Months supply of inventory: 1.4 months, down 48.1%
Population: 31,185 Median household income: $79,181
One thing to know: The Iwo Jima Survivors Memorial Park, commemorating the pivotal battle in World War II, was dedicated in 1995 on the Newington-New Britain town line.
8. East Granby
Single-family home sales: 99, up 20.7%
Median sale price: $283,000, up 11.2%
Percentage of listing price received: 98.7%, up 1.1%
Months supply of inventory: 62.5%1.5 months, down
Population: 5,317 Median household income: $93,385
One thing to know: Walter Wick, the author and illustrator of the “I Spy” children’s book series, grew up in East Granby.
9. Simsbury
Single-family home sales: 409, up 20.3%
Median sale price: $340,000, up 0.6%
Percentage of listing price received: 100.3%, up 2.2%
Months supply of inventory: 2.1 months, down 53.3%
Population: 22,364 Median household income: $116,444
One thing to know: The Pinchot Sycamore on Route 185 in Simsbury is recognized as the largest tree in Connecticut. A measurement in 2016 placed the circumference of its trunk at 28 feet.
10. Bloomfield
Single-family home sales: 273, up 19.7%
Median sale price: $225,000, up 11.1%
Percentage of listing price received: 100.1%, up 1.7%
Months supply of inventory: 1.4 months, down 60% Population: 20,508 Median household income: $73,593
One thing to know: The 1957 Wilde Building on the campus of health insurer Cigna is considered a foremost example of the International style as rendered in corporate architecture. It was saved from demolition in the 2000s.