New Home Listings, Pending Sales Down

Unemployment, shaky consumer confidence and a rough winter are among the factors that have slowed the real estate market lately, according to area real estate agents.

Statistics for Greater Hartford show a decline in the number of new, single-family residential listings, as well as drops in pending and closed sales in the first two months of this year, compared with the same period last year. The average number of days a property stays on the market increased from 82 days to 92 days.

The most dramatic change was in the number of new listings, a 32.7 percent decline from 2,749 in early 2010 to 1,851 so far in 2011, according to statistics from the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors. 

Maureen Swarts, a sales manager and associate broker at Coldwell Banker in Simsbury and Granby, said tight credit has played a role in the market over the last few years.

“It has gotten much more difficult to get a mortgage,” she said. “People have to have very good credit and great ratios between asset and debt.”

Unemployment and low consumer confidence are also having an effect, Swarts said.  “We’ve never had all of these factors all at one time. It is a much more challenging market.”

Buyers have become very selective, and Swarts said she is seeing prices coming down in an effort to sell. Overall, she said, sellers are willing to negotiate.

“There are fabulous, fabulous deals out there,” she said. “The buyers need to get out there. Once this market does turn, and it will, ...  people will wish they had bought.”

Beth McIntyre, of Keller Williams Realty, which serves the Farmington Valley and greater Hartford area, identified the first-time homebuyer tax credit as a motivator for last year’s buyers. She said the spring market is much slower to arrive than last year, when the credit was due to expire.

“The impending expiration of that tax credit fueled lots of real estate activity earlier than the spring activity that's taking place in 2011,” she said. 

And while the winter season has now passed and spring is in full bloom, the winter’s severe elements this year have also trickled into the real estate market, according to Lisa Sheary of RE/MAX. 

“We are currently in the middle of our spring market and we usually experience a marked increase in homes listed, as well as an influx of buyers,” Sheary said. “I believe that the past winter has postponed the spring market a bit. There were many homeowners in our area who experienced ice damming in January and February and some basement/home flooding in February and March.”

As a result, some homeowners are still completing those repairs in an effort to get their homes ready for the market, Sheary said.

The Greater Hartford Association of Realtors reported that pending sales dropped 23.5 percent, from the 1,372  in early 2010 to 1,049 so far this year. Closed sales also dropped slightly, from 809 in 2010 to 777 in 2011, for an overall change of 3.96 percent.

Despite the figures, Sheary remains hopeful the market will pick up and buyers will take advantage of low interest rates. 

“I am hopeful that we may see more of a normal spring market when these homes, and therefore buyers, hit the market,” Sheary said. “Interest rates for a 30-year fixed conventional mortgage are still under 5 percent and should really be taken advantage of.”

Jeff Arakelian, president and CEO of the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors, said there have been encouraging signs of the market picking up. 

"Those are all valid points for the current market,” Arakelian said. "In talking with some of our members, it appears that there is regional activity indicating the spring market is picking up. It's a great time to buy because interest rates are at historically low levels and there is plenty of inventory."