Data: Bucking Conn. trends, Bridgeport’s population moved out
BRIDGEPORT — The high- priced bidding wars for homes, increased rents and positive results of 2020’ s property revaluation are all evidence of a booming local real estate market.
So why does recent data compiled by Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis, a commercial real estate and investment firm, show more people left Connecticut’s largest city last year?
According to CBRE’s analysis of change- of- address filings with the U. S. Postal service, Bridgeport, in comparison with many other Fairfield County municipalities, had more residents leave from the half- dozen main zip codes — 12,922 — than the 10,846 who moved in.
“That’s actually kind of shocking,” said Cisco Borres, a Realtor with RE/ MAX handling northern Fairfield and southern New Haven counties. Borres also used to be the city’s deputy Republican Registrar of Voters.
“The sales market is still
hot,” he said. “( Sales) on the market are still being measured in days rather than weeks, as opposed to two years ago.”
Tracking population through postal service data is a job of straining and refining information. Households file a single change- of- address form for all family members sharing the same last name, with anyone in the household having a different surname filing an individual form.
But the total change in population is there to see.
Local real estate experts interviewed for this story offered a couple reasons for the exodus, with some arguing residents simply do not want to remain in town any longer and can finally sell at a profit, and others that renters are the ones being forced out.
Like much of Connecticut, Bridgeport’s housing market has benefited from people in New York City and elsewhere motivated by the coronavirus pandemic to relocate from more crowded areas.
“Ninety percent of my clients are from New York,” said Realtor and City Councilman Marcus Brown. “So they get an inner city feel but also a residential feel out of Bridgeport.”
And that interest has driven up prices and resulted in fast sales.
Realtor Lisa Parziale — a former council member and president — said just recently a well- maintained but lessthan- 1,200 square foot home near hers sold for $ 329,000 “in one day.”
“This is in Bridgeport. For a house that isn’t even 1,200 square feet. And it only has one bathroom,” Parziale said. “The houses are going very quickly ( with) constant bidding wars.”
Which helped drive a city- wide increase in real estate values during the 2020 state- mandated property revaluation, allowing elected officials to lower the tax rate in the just- concluded budget season.
But if there is so much interest in Bridgeport, what accounts for the net exodus in the CBRE/ postal service numbers? Parziale’s theory is Bridgeport may have become desirable to outsiders, but some of those living here have grown disenchanted.
“If they can, they want to get out,” Parziale said. “I’ve lived here my entire life. I’m probably gonna die here. ( But) we have a lot of problems.”
Those issues — a struggling education system, crime, a high cost of living, government corruption, an underdeveloped downtown — have been lingering and well- documented.
Brown said he is aware some residents have wanted to head to the suburbs for the schools but, until recently, “haven’t been able to do it.” He recalled that while campaigning in recent years, “A lot of people said they wanted to move out ( but) they were underwater. Their houses weren’t worth what they bought them for.
“So I think with the values of these homes going up, people can make a profit or break even and ‘ get out of Dodge,’ so to speak,” Brown said.
But Charles Scott Sr., president of Tri- State Realty on North Avenue, said he believes many who left last year were renters displaced by increases in rent or by buyers purchasing multi- family homes for themselves and their extended families.
“That’s why the ( CBRE) numbers look off,” Scott said. “The renters are moving towards the Valley, the Waterbury area.”
“The present owner who owns the house may have purchased it five or 10 years ago for maybe $ 200,000,” Scott explained. “Now they’re selling it for $ 350,000, $ 400,000.”
Which means the new landlord will charge existing tenants more in order to be able to afford the mortgage.
Another recent trend in Bridgeport’s rental market, Scott said, is “people are buying, coming in in droves, and purchasing as owners. ... The person that buys the multi- family ( house), they want to be able to move in their sister, brother, cousin.”
Borres, too, has witnessed fewer investors scooping up and renting- out multi- family Bridgeport homes, he said.
“The New Yorkers are buying to occupy. The investment buyers ( are) having a hard time competing,” he said. “The return on investment at the inflated price point is very tough to meet what investors are accustomed to. They want to see a ratio of profit- to- expenses. ... It’s just not as high right now.”
None of which means Bridgeport’s overall rental market is in trouble. Plenty of developers have opened or are building apartments, like 1188 Lofts downtown, Windward Commons in the South End and Canfield Park in Black Rock where the Showcase movie theater used to be.
William Finger is co- managing partner of Eastpointe in Fairfield which is behind the market- rate Canfield Park. He said Eastpointe hopes to begin occupying the first 69 units by next February and the balance in mid- to- late summer 2022.
“For the type of product we’re building, where we’re building, we are extremely bullish,” Finger said. “I also think, quite frankly, the downtown core ( of Bridgeport) is a strong market and probably could absorb a lot more units if they were built.”
The issue may be that apartments are becoming less affordable and the lowerincome residents are the ones departing.
Jillian Baldwin, director of Park City Communities, Bridgeport’s public housing authority, said the community her agency serves is grappling with the spike in rental prices. She said it has been particularly evident with the housing authority’s subsidy program which helps clients offset rents at privately- owned buildings.
“They’re ( private landlords) asking for $ 200, $ 300 more than our vouchers pay out, so it disqualifies our families from being able to rent those,” Baldwin said. “What it’s looking like is we’ll have to issue fewer vouchers and give highervalue vouchers to families.”
And, Baldwin said, applications for the low- income buildings Park City manages are “through the roof.”
“Just in the last 30 days, we’ve seen 300 people sign up for public housing here,” Baldwin said. “All year long we carried a balance of 350 to 400 families over the course of the last 12 months or so.”
Asked if Bridgeport was experiencing a wave of gentrification, with wealthier people moving in and displacing residents of less means, Scott said “it depends on who you are talking to” and noted some consider that term controversial.
“People don’t call it ‘ gentrification’,” Scott said. “They call it ‘ economic development.’”
Brown sees a net positive in all the activity — an influx of younger residents.
“It’s attractive to young people — that’s what they tell me,” he said. “We are welcoming them.”