Snow wasn’t the only thing piling up in January, as the Hartford area housing market ended the month with another mounting backlog of unsold properties, local Realtor data shows. One bright spot: Higher median house prices.
Inventory of houses for sale last month grew to 5,038, up 6.3 percent from 4,739 unsold units in January 2010, according to the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors.
Part of the reason was that actual sales dropped 7.7 percent to 396 closings in January from 429 a year earlier. Another factor was that houses already on the market sat unsold an average of 89 days, eight days longer than a year ago, the association said.
On top of those two, more houses flooded onto the market in January: 1,004 new listings vs. 676 in December but still less than the 1,286 newcomers in January 2009, the group said.
Meantime, the median sale price of single-family homes rose 1.4 percent from $215,000 to $218,000 from $215,000 a year earlier, the association said.
The trend was nearly identical for the Hartford area condominium market, except that median condo prices fell 2.9 percent in the month to $165,000, the Realtors said.
