The housing market in Connecticut remains among the hottest in the United States, but the dearth of inventory provides few choices for buyers.
Connecticut has seen among the largest inventory losses in the country between May 2019 and May 2023.
The Hartford metropolitan area has seen active listings fall 80% over the past four years, based on data from Realtor.com. The area had 5,363 active listings in May 2017. This May, there were just 882.
According to the data, the New Haven area saw a 74% drop in inventory since May 2019, and Bridgeport had a 78% decline.
“Very limited,” Fortune magazine’s housing reporter, Lance Lambert, said in a Tweet. “That’s the best way to describe inventory in Connecticut.”
Fortune reported that, among the 100 largest housing markets, only Austin was back to 2019 inventory levels, with 4% more listings in May 2023 than in 2019.
Nationally, housing inventory increased 21.5% compared to last May, according to Realtor.com. However, markets like Connecticut have continued to experience inventory decline.
“This relatively low inventory growth is the result of high demand, coupled with lagging rates of new listing activity,” the report from Realtor.com states. “This combination leads to short time on market, driving hot market status.”
According to data released by the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors on Tuesday, the inventory of single-family homes in Greater Hartford decreased 34.4% (from 1,028 to 674) and new listings decreased 28.3% (from 817 to 586), compared to May of last year.
The median sales price increased 4.3% (from $345,000 to $360,000), the GHAR data shows.
Closed sales fell 22.8% (from 535 to 413) and pending sales decreased 26.4% (from 652 to 480). The average number of days on the market until sale increased 35.3% (from 17 to 23 days) during this same year-over-year timeframe.
“Limited housing supply and high interest rates continue to drive down sales in our market,” Greater Hartford Association of Realtors CEO Holly Callanan said.
