After a bitterly cold and snowy first half to our winter in Greater New Haven, we can look at our sales for the past few months and know one thing for sure: The old rule that bad weather ruins real estate sales isn't true any longer. In fact, both December and January were blockbuster months for us at Pearce.
Some of that could relate to tax changes, and some of that should relate to rising interest rates (sadly, we know that no one believes that rates will rise until they start to do so); however, the rest seems to have come from a spike in activity that began in late October. That's far later than prior "fall markets" started, but is in line with what is closing now. It seems to be about more than tax and mortgage changes, and has to do with a sense of urgency that didn't exist for a long time.
In almost every part of the country, lack of inventory is driving what is clearly a sellers' market in most places. That is pushing up prices, lowering days on market, and creating a feeding frenzy. Connecticut has been very late to this party, but we are finally showing up. There isn't much to show in many price ranges, millennials are coming to the fore, and market fluctuations are pushing buyers off the fence. We've seen this in commercial markets as well; in fact, in our region, it's stronger there, at the moment.
So what do we do with the traditional model, where homes get listed early in May, sold in June, and closed in July and August? Throw it out? Probably so. For at least the foreseeable future, our Greater New Haven academic market heats up early in the year, stops dead around graduation, and picks up again in late fall, when the semester has settled in. That's great news for sellers who are ready to list now. Don't let us stop you--it's the time to move!
