State’s median home sale price reached 5-year high in June

Amid a decline in yearover-year home sales in Connecticut in June, the median price of homes sold during the month climbed 2.9 percent to $280,000, the highest June price since 2013, The Warren Group, publisher of The Commercial Record, reported Tuesday.

The median price is the midpoint of the range of sale prices, with equal numbers of sale prices lower and higher.

A total of 3,753 single-family homes was sold in the month compared to 3,927 sold in June 2017, a 4.4 percent decrease. For the first six months of the year, home sale transactions totaled 15,523, a 1.5 percent decrease from the first six months of 2017.

The year-to-date median sale price of $254,000 marked a 3.7 percent increase over the same period the previous year.

“Hitting a five-year high (in median sale price) is encouraging, but we need to keep in mind that the market has still not hit its pre-recession peaks,” Timothy Warren, CEO of The Warren Group, said in a statement. “In June 2007, the median price was $325,000, and back in June 2004, the number of homes sold was 5,200. Both are substantially higher than the numbers achieved this year.”

Supply and demand will continue to be “the deciding factors” for the balance of 2018, economist Donald Klepper-Smith said, adding, “My forecast at the start of the year called for a modest single-digit increase in both sales and median prices, and we’re not far off that mark.”

Klepper-Smith said activity in local housing markets reflect the state of local labor markets, which recently have shown “modest progress” in Connecticut, where the job-recovery rate has lagged behind that of the other New England states.

“I also expect to see a continuation of domestic outmigration as aging (baby boomers) seek warmer climates in retirement, trying to stretch their spending power, which suggests downside pressure on median prices in the years ahead,” he said.

Condominium sales in Connecticut decreased in June, falling 3.6 percent, according to The Warren Group. The median sale price for condos fell 2.3 percent to $171,000. For the first six months of the year, condo sales totaled 4,234 transactions with a median sale price of $164,000.