Once again, I've met with colleagues from around the country, this time in New York City. That market is much softer than in the past few years, especially at the upper end (although their upper end is so high that we can't even imagine sales at those prices!). In fact, the upper end everywhere, whatever that means in a particular market, has slowed down considerably. Supply exceeds demand, and is often over a year or more in quantity; here, that supply is much higher. In Middlesex and New Haven counties, 5 homes over $2 million had sold by July, and there were 87 active listings in that price range on the market. Just do the math.
On the lower end of price ranges, almost every company reported that sales were being affected by lack of inventory. In some places, that meant that the supply of homes could be measured in days. Again, we have more supply in our market, but even we feel that there are not enough homes in very good condition and under $300,000 in some places.
When you go to a meeting that has national representation, you can really see how far behind Connecticut lags, in almost every category--job growth, population, birth rate, home prices, and home sales. We need to get our act together, and sooner rather than later. Having said that, NYC is not the boom town of the past few years, and agents there complained that sellers wanted last year's prices, while buyers wanted next year's prices. That's food for thought for sellers here, as well.
