The city of Hartford, Connecticut, doesn’t typically make national news headlines. So when Steve Lucca, a local Keller Williams agent and leader of the top-performing iCONN Realty Group, saw the Greater Hartford area named as Realtor.com’s top market for 2023, he was jazzed.
“They are predicting that we are going to the number one most active, busiest real estate market in the country,” Lucca said. “Hartford, our city, actually made number one.”
The numbers support Lucca’s excitement over the Greater Hartford area’s housing market. Hartford County’s Altos Market Action Index reading for the week ending December 30, 2022 was 57, compared to a national reading of 39. Altos considers an index reading of 30 to be a balanced market — and anything above that to be a seller’s market.
“Our phones are still blowing up, but if you go just 500 miles west there is no activity, but I don’t see this changing in Connecticut,” Lucca said. “People are calling saying they spoke with a friend out West who has been trying to sell their house and struggling, and then these callers expect that they can negotiate a price on a property here in the Hartford area, and that just isn’t the case.”
While both agents and industry experts predict that the Greater Hartford housing market will remain strong in 2023, the picture looked very different less than a decade ago.
As recently as late-February 2015, the median number of days on market in Hartford County was at 140, according to data from Altos Research. In comparison, the 7-day average median number of days on market was 56 during the week ending on December 30, 2022. The number of days on market in Hartford County hit a low of seven days in mid-June 2022.
“I have 22 years of experience, and all of a sudden, now I feel like my experience has gone from 22 years to three or four years because what we have seen over the course of the pandemic is so different than anything I have seen before,” Lucca said. “Never before had we seen 15 offers come in on a home priced at $230,000 and then have it go for $320,000.”
At the onset of the pandemic, Dawn Satagaj, a local William Raveis agent, said she saw an influx of out-of-state buyers.
“It is such a great location and easy to get to Boston or New York,” Satagaj said. “But it was hard on a lot of the local buyers who were getting outbid by cash buyers coming in from out of town.”
Although the stream of out-of-state buyers has slowed, local agents said they have continued to see people from across the country deciding to make Hartford County their home.
“When we went through the Great Recession, we lost a lot of our insurance industry, so we didn’t have as many people moving in from out of town for those jobs,” Katie French, a local Coldwell Banker agent, said. “Now that the COVID market has slowed, we are still seeing a lot of people moving here because they are moving home. They somehow ended up in New York or the West Coast, but they decided to come back to an environment they felt was safe, and where their kids could have the life they had as children.”
In addition to a dramatic decrease in the amount of time a home spends on the market, home prices have also shot up since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of December 30, 2022, the 7-day average median list price in Hartford County was $349,000, down slightly from the high of $378,500 set in early April 2021. However, that is still markedly higher than the $239,000 median list price recorded in early January of 2015, according to Altos.
“After so long, it was nice for our sellers to finally see some strong appreciation in the market after so many years of prices really languishing,” French said. “I was really excited for them.”
Lucca added: “The big bump in pricing that we’ve seen over the last couple of years was due for Connecticut. As expensive as we are in Connecticut, we are still a bargain compared to New York, New Jersey and even parts of Massachusetts.”
But while agents and industry analysts remain bullish about the future of the Greater Hartford housing market, agents still have their concerns, with inventory constraints being a major source of unease.
“There are just no houses to sell and the buyers are still out there,” Satagaj said. “I’ve been selling for 30 years, and I cannot remember a time where there weren’t enough houses on the market.”
Satagaj said that while some would-be sellers are opting to stay in their current homes due to the low mortgage rate they have on the property, most potential clients she speaks with are more concerned about where they will move to when they do sell their homes.
Despite the constrained inventory and steady buyer pool, the number of days a home spends on the market has increased over the past few months, but agents say well maintained and fairly priced homes in desirable neighborhoods are still going fast.
“Anywhere from four to eight weeks is how long your home might potentially be on the market for if you have a very stiff price or if your house isn’t in good condition or there is a location issue,” Lucca said. “For the most part, though, a good house that comes on the market in an area that is desirable, it is going to have three or four offers on it fairly quickly.”
Lucca said his team had put in offers on nine homes in the past 10 days and their offers were beaten by other buyers on six of the properties.
Although multiple offer situations are still occurring, agents say that buyers are being more cautious than they were at the height of the market last spring.
“Buyers are taking a little bit longer and thinking more before they submit an offer,” Satagaj said. “I don’t see as many buyers waving inspections or things like that anymore.”
While agents in the Greater Hartford area are optimistic about the 2023 housing market, some of their strategies bely a further slowdown may be on its way.
“I am seeing all kinds of things recurring again from price reductions to open houses,” French said. “Looking ahead, I anticipate we will also see some more promotions from builders and broker open houses — and even incentives from sellers where they are willing to give buyers $5,000 to repaint the home. Those aren’t happening yet, but I think we will see them start popping up again.“
