The Connecticut housing market
has really gone through a bit of
a roller coaster in recent years,
but we've got some great
news to share with folks.
According to realtor.com,
the Connecticut housing market is
actually the top in the nation.
And joining us right now from
William Raveis real estate is
Harry Feiner to talk about this.
And Harry, a lot of people have been
frustrated with the market for a lot
of different reasons because this
new rating from realtor.com is huge.
The Hartford market has moved
up very quickly.
In the last three months and
right now it's sitting at the
top spot for the entire country.
Yes, it is and it's,
it's pretty exciting because it's great
news not only for Greater Hartford,
also for Eastern Connecticut.
So the eastern Connecticut
was number 4 in the country.
It's called the Worcester,
Connecticut market.
So two markets in Connecticut
are really experiencing good
growth and the sales price and
in the the quality of properties.
Yeah, how did this happen because
a few months ago Hartford was
listed at somewhere in the 30s,
right, and then it jumped to #4.
And then just last week, it jumped to #1.
What contributed to that?
Well, there's a couple of different factors.
One is our economy is doing so much better.
You look at healthcare,
manufacturing, the IT,
the IT businesses are bringing
people here to Connecticut.
We, we, we're losing people now.
We're gaining people.
And because of that,
there's more housing demand and that's
helping our prices be stable and our prices
are still going through bidding wars.
In some places they are not.
And we're bidding wars because we we don't
have as much inventory in the market.
But we're also strategically located
between Boston and New York and the
people who have worked there have
decided to come to the country,
if you want to call Hartford the country.
But Greater Hartford we've got
another like country spots around
and they can still commute a couple
of days of work to those locations.
And we saw more of that happen
in the last quarter.
And this is great news and very sort
of optimistic because a lot of people
might say our economy is not doing good.
But this, you know there's a lot
of research that went into this.
Yes there is and I mean if you.
You look at the,
the news that we've had about
electric boat having 5 to 8000
people over into the next five years.
United Technology is hiring,
the IT business is looking.
A couple years ago there was an insurance
executive said there wasn't enough IT
people here and he wanted to move out.
And like New York people have heard
that and they're bringing their
IT business here to support that
industry and that brings more people.
And we're also seeing a lot of
people coming from Asia to to
Connecticut because of the jobs
which seen lots of doctors come in.
Right, right. As you mentioned
healthcare earlier, yes.
Now what does this mean
for people who are thinking
about buying and or selling?
Well, from a seller's perspective,
this is a great time.
And some people say that, Gee,
you don't sell your house in the winter,
you wait till the spring, exactly.
Because the inventory is low
from a seller perspective,
you have less competition.
And because you have less competition,
people are more apt to look at your
house than somebody else's house.
So that that's one factor.
The other is that the prices
are higher than they've been.
So this is a great time to
sell and some people say,
well, if I buy something else.
Price is going to be higher,
but it equals out,
right, right. As far as first
time home buyers though,
it's really tough right now.
So first time home buyers,
that's another good news for Connecticut.
I have it wrong. So in Connecticut,
we were just ranked #3 in the Windsor Locks,
Hartford area in the country
for first time home buyers.
And one of the reasons is and many
people don't know about this and there's
been funding put into CHF a for a
program called first time time to own,
the time to own is going to give you.
Money give you money to buy a house they they
give you is it for first time home buyers,
first time home buyers they can qualify
and you can get up from between 20 to
$50,000 to help you with your down
payment to help you with your closing cost.
And as long as you're paying your your
your mortgage on time they'll eliminate
10% of that over a couple of years.
So you know if you're a first time home
buyer this is a great time to buy and
also that we didn't mention Amazon.
Amazon has helped especially in
Windsor locks area all these big
buildings are putting up.
Have people to employ hmm and those
are the other things that helped
with the change from 39 to one.
Now quick question though,
just to put in perspective before
we wrap up, we were talking
about inventory being so low,
bring it into the perspective
as far as numbers that you're
familiar with in Glastonbury.
So in in Glastonbury,
if you go back three years ago,
we used to have 300 homes for sale
at any single point in time and
we used to have about 75 condos.
In the last year and a half,
we've been averaging 50 homes,
which of which half? For new builds.
So there's not a lot of what we call
resale homes on the market, right.
And the condos have been running
four to five at any one time
and that's the only thing that's
available just four to five years.
Now you might say, well,
is it people just start selling their homes.
The ones that are putting their
house on the market are selling
quicker than they've ever sold.
They're selling in one to two 3-4 days where
before we used to look at 30 to 90 days.
So that's kept the numbers down low as well.
People have decided not to move and many.
Many retirees wanted to go to Florida,
but because of COVID they didn't do it.
Hmm. And we think that what the
forecast is saying this spring should
open up things even more for us.
And the interest rates are the other
thing from a buyer perspective.
In 1986,
I had a 16% interest rate on my new House,
16%.
In the 70s when I was selling real estate,
we had I sold over 22 houses part time.
In four years,
the interest rate was nine
and a half and nobody blinked.
You know,
So what we see is that it's gonna
come down to about 5 1/2 to 6%
and that is a great mortgage.
It always was.
3% was a gift.
Yeah, ohh, sure.
Well Harry, we can go on and on.
Unfortunately we're running out of time,
but we really appreciate you coming in.
This is great news for
Hartford. It is. And thank
you for having me here today.
Alright, we do appreciate it.
Talk to you again soon. OK. All right.
Matt, Great News for Connecticut.
I mean we currently live in the top
housing market in the entire country.