Greater Hartford home sales uneasy

As 2019 winds down, a report Wednesday suggested the home sale market in Greater Hartford is not poised to make any significant gains for the year.

Through the first 11 months of the year, sales of single-family houses rose just 0.9% compared with the same period a year ago, according to the monthly report released by the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors, an industry group.

The median sale price — where half the sales are above, half below — crept up 0.8%, to $247,000, from $245,000 in the first 11 months of 2018, the association said. The association tracks real estate sales based on multiple listing data from 27 towns and cities, stretching from Suffield to Rocky Hill and Canton to Willington.

Don Klepper-Smith, an economist at DataCore Partners, said 2019 shaped up as he forecast a year ago, and he’s not expecting a major shift for 2020. In 2020, Greater Hartford could see potential gains in sales and median prices of about 2%.

There are some bright spots: relatively low interest rates keeps homebuying affordable, and the economic expansion nationally is a decade old but appears to still have life left in it, he said.

Klepper-Smith said some significant gains in manufacturing also are cause for optimism in the Greater Hartford market.

“Let’s hope we can build on it,” he said.

The home sale market in Greater Hartford — and much of Connecticut for that matter — has struggled to recover from more than a decade ago. The recovery has been held back by slow job growth, which directly affects confidence to buy a home.

The Greater Hartford single-family house market saw some spikes in sales and median prices earlier this year, but not enough to fuel much of an overall gain for the year.

In November, sales of single-family houses plummeted nearly 17% compared with the same month a year ago. But the median sale price rose 5%, to $247,000, from $235,000 in November of last year.

The smaller condominium market showed more strength in 2019.

Through November, condo sales rose a little over1% compared with the same time frame a year ago. The median sale price increased 2.4%, to $164,850, from $161,000 for the first eleven months of 2018.