April was a bad month for residential real estate in Connecticut, as home sales and prices tumbled. The declines were particularly severe in Fairfield County.
Conversely, brisk sales at luxury condominium projects, such as Blue Back Square in West Hartford, have helped keep condominium prices on the upswing.
Statewide, home sales fell off by 26.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest data from The Warren Group in Boston. Connecticut had 1,923 single-family home sales in April, compared with 2,624 sales tracked for the same month last year.
Sales Fall 27.3 Percent
The year-to-date figures for the first four months of 2008 provide a similarly negative picture of the residential real estate market. Sales were down 27.3 percent through April, dropping from 9,382 last year to 6,819 this year.
The median sale price for a single-family home in Connecticut was down 9.8 percent in April, falling from $291,600 last April to $263,000 this year. That drop was steeper than the decline for the first four months of the year. The median price for January through April was $265,000, down 7 percent from $285,000 in the same period in 2007.
The greatest sales decline was found in Fairfield County, the area that had benefited the most from the recent real estate boom. Home sales in the county dropped 30 percent in April. The median sales prices in Fairfield County slipped to $500,000.
“When the mortgage market dries up, it hurts everyone,” said Warren Group CEO Timothy Warren Jr. “With stricter underwriting guidelines, fewer people are able to come up with down payments needed to buy.”
Condo Prices Hold
Condominium sales have also dropped by 24.7 percent in April and by 31.5 percent for the first four months. However, year-to-date median prices rose 2.05 percent to $199,000, and the sales prices for April were up a startling 12.8 percent to $220,000.
Warren said luxury condo projects, such as Blue Back Square, were fueling the increase. Condos in that project sell for between $600,000 and $1 million.
“Although condo sales are down, buyers are flocking to quality,” he said. “Those sales have been robust, and they go a long way to explaining the strength of the condo median sales price.”
