The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Connecticut led Northeast in land sales last year
2024 could follow a similar trend
After last year’s boom market, Connecticut led the Northeast for land sales in 2023 according to a new study, with landholders continuing to dangle parcels to opportunistic developers and other buyers.
Thanks in part to a gargantuan sale late last year in Darien, the value of land sold in Connecticut exceeded that of its Northeast neighbors, according to the National Association of Realtors’ annual survey of real estate brokers. NAR surveys suggested that Connecticut land buys amounted to 2 percent of all purchases nationally, despite Connecticut’s size amounting to about a tenth of a percent of the total acreage in the United States.
More than 3,400 acres of land sold in Connecticut through April 14, according to a CT Insider review of real estate transactions recorded by Zillow, with some of those lots including buildings on the property that add only marginal value to the lots. That compared to about 2,850 acres over the prior 15week stretch dating back to mid-September 2023, for an increase of nearly 20 percent of acreage changing hands.
In Litchfield County last month, television producer Bob Boyett sold land northeast of Washining Lake and three more parcels extending north and across the Massachusetts border, with plans in place to keep the land preserved from development. Combined, the parcels total 1,100 acres.
“It’s like the housing market in that they are selling when the good ones come on — and certainly in the last year we’ve seen a spike in land sales,” said Bill Melnick, an agent in the Salisbury office of Elyse Harney Real Estate who brokered the Boyett property sale alongside Elyse Harney Morris. “A good land parcel is one where someone can have their house up off the road, and if it has views that makes it even more special. That’s what’s getting the really high prices, and it then it just has to be buildable as well — you have to make sure you can get a septic in.”
Throughout the Northeast, the COVID-19 pandemic had a galvanizing impact on land purchases, as buyers scooped up the best houses on the market, prompting others to build their own and developers to attempt to capitalize on renewed interest in the countryside and outdoor pursuits.
Last December, Darien recorded Connecticut’s priciest land sale in years with the $57.5 million sale of a 51 acre swath of the historic Ziegler Farm on Long Neck Point, equating to more than $1.1 million an acre.
Connecticut land prices are currently averaging about $31,500 an acre, according to LandSearch, ranked 10th among the 50 states. Rhode Island has the highest average cost of land, at more than $120,000 an acre nearly twice the price of available land in second-ranked Hawaii.
Statewide in Connecticut as of Monday, nearly 570 vacant lots were listed for sale totaling about 8,200 acres as tallied by LandSearch, not including at least 500 more where structures exist on the property for owners to preserve, renovate or tear down for new construction.
A waterfront Beachside Avenue lot in Westport is the most expensive on the Connecticut market for single-family residential, priced at $10.5 million for about three acres. Not including a Griswold farm property that has multiple structures, Connecticut’s largest new land listing this year is in Southbury, where 150 acres were put up for sale on Hull Hills Road not far from Southford Falls State Park, with an asking price of $5.2 million.
On Stone Road in Windsor, a 280-acre agriculture parcel is under contract to be sold, after being listed nearly a year ago for $6.8 million.
New listings surfaced Monday, including nearly 50 acres on Pendleton Hill Road in North Stonington being pitched to developers. And land continues to sell for sky-high sums if in the right location, such as two acres in the gated Cherry Blossom Lane development in Greenwich, which is under contract to be sold after being listed for $1.4 million.
Melnick said many developers and other buyers have been undeterred by higher interest rates, paying cash up front rather than financing purchases through a mortgage. And whatever their plans for their new land holdings, most have far longer time frames in mind than home buyers who are looking to get the keys for an immediate move, or if for a weekend home, use of it for the summer months.
“It’s a discretionary buyer and a discretionary seller,” Melnick said. “We’re seeing more stuff come on, but I don’t think we’re seeing enough to meet the demand.”