Blogs

Housing Scene

Our regular compendium of arcane data, interesting trends and notable figures powered by The Warren Group databases and compiled by our own Aglaia Pikounis.

• Towns Bucking the Declining House Price Trend

  Not all communities in Connecticut are seeing deep housing discounts. Take Newtown, for example. The median selling price for single-family homes in the scenic town about 60 miles from New York City climbed 10 percent to $500,000 in the first two quarters from $455,000 during the same period in 2008, according to The Warren Group.

  
  

• How The Mighty Have Fallen

  With this economy, even uber-wealthy communities like Greenwich, Darien, Westport and New Cannan aren’t immune to the real estate woes facing the rest of the state and country.

  
  

• No Spike In Connecticut Home Sales …Yet

  Economists and others looking for a bright spot in the otherwise glum economic news have been encouraged by recent reports that sales of existing and newly built homes increased in February. Unfortunately, the sales spike didn’t spread to Connecticut and other parts of New England.

  
  

• Urban Conn. Condo Crash

  Connecticut’s condo market has taken a serious beating during this housing downturn. Condo transactions in cities like Stamford, Bridgeport and New Haven, have plunged to record lows.

  
  

• Good News For Local Housing Market Continues

  August was a good month for home sales in Connecticut. It was the second straight month that single-family home sales increased in Connecticut, The Warren Group reported recently. Here’s what’s not mentioned in the report: while sales of lower-price single-family homes helped to prop up the overall sales volume, higher-end home sales are dragging.

  
  

• Despite Chipper Report, No Home Sales Pick-Up Yet

  A report from the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors this week that pending sales of single-family homes in the Hartford region have been on the rise for three months straight had me scratching my head. Why? Well, the number of actual closed sales of single-family homes in Hartford County has declined by double-digit percentages year-over-year for every month in 2009, according to The Warren Group.

  
  

• Lenders Saying No Thanks to Loan Mods

  Here’s one study that is likely to get a lot of attention: The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reports in a new paper that lenders aren’t modifying many loans for homeowners at risk of foreclosure because it’s not profitable for them.

  
  

• Federal Requirements for Agency Disclosure?

  The National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (NAEBA) wants to make sure buyers and sellers know exactly who the real estate agent is truly representing in a real estate transaction.

  
  

• REO Sales Becoming Bigger Part of the Local Real Estate Market

  Bank-owned property sales have grown significantly in Connecticut. Of the 5,079 single-family homes sold in the first four months of 2009, 265 – or 5.2 percent – were homes owned by lending institutions, according to a new analysis from The Warren Group.

  
  

• Loan Refis Heading Up

  Mortgage loan refinancing activity has been climbing steadily for five months now. In Connecticut, 9,857 single-family home loan refis were recorded in March. That’s up 27 percent from February when there were 7,752 refi loans.

  
  

• Million-Dollar-Plus Home Sales Sag

  Sales of million-dollar-plus homes and condos in Connecticut tumbled a whopping 63 percent during the first quarter compared to a year ago.

  
  

• More Conn. Homeowners Struggle With Foreclosure

  It looks like more Connecticut residents are facing foreclosure this year. More lis pendens were filed statewide in the first quarter compared to a year ago. There were a total of 7,128 lis pendens in the first three months of 2009, a 31 percent increase form the same period last year, according to The Warren Group. Lis pendens represent the first stage in the foreclosure process.

  
  

• Some Conn. Towns Post Big First Quarter Home Price Declines

  You may be surprised to see which Connecticut communities experienced steep drops in home prices during the first quarter.

  
  

• Multimillion-Dollar Home Sales Market Withers

  Saying it’s been a tough year so far for real estate agents who handle ultra-luxury home sales in Connecticut would be a huge understatement.

  
  

• First-Time Buyers Running Out Of Time

  If you look at the types of homes that have been trading in Connecticut, it looks like first-time buyers have helped the market pick up a bit.

  
  

• Sellers & Realtors Beware

  As if home sellers didn’t have enough to worry about, now they have to beware of one more thing: scam artists who post their home as a rental on Craigslist.

  
  

• New Canaan’s Ritzy Housing Market

  New Canaan apparently has a “hot” housing market. Brokerage firm ZipRealty reported this week that homes in the upscale town sold for an average of 105.5 percent of list price in last year’s fourth quarter.

  
  

• Underpricing A Home: Too Risky?

  One of the biggest challenges for real estate agents, especially in a down market, is getting home sellers to price their property to accurately reflect market value.

  
  

• Dwindling Interest in McMansions

  “McMansions? The market for $4 million to $6 million houses is very quiet …. We have a number of them sitting empty, and as far as I know, there are very few builders that are planning to build big spec homes.” That’s what one local broker told the New York Times recently about the housing market in New Canaan.

  
  

• No Bounce For The Condo Market

  It’s clear that Connecticut’s condo market is still hurting, despite all the positive news that filtered through about the housing market last week.

  
  

• Can Afford Mortgage Payments But Still Walking Away

  Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management recently found that 26 percent of mortgage defaults are the result of homeowners who can afford their mortgages but are simply walking away because they owe more than their homes are worth.

  
  

• End of Building Boom Means Lower Home Prices In Some Locales

  In a story in The Day about how shoreline towns have seen home values increase while in other towns prices plummeted, reporter Lee Howard notes that Salem home prices have dropped steeply.

  
  

• Madoff Not A Selling Point For NYC Penthouse

  Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff’s lavish penthouse is being sold by Sotheby’s International Realty in New York. The Upper East side co-op has been valued at $7.5 million by the government. Good Morning America took viewers on a tour of the property this week, pointing out that the luxury residence features his and her dens – I’m not kidding – and closets that are bigger than some Manhattan apartments.

  
  

• Stamford Homebuyers Have Advantage

  Homebuyers in Stamford have been able to negotiate some pretty decent discounts recently. Stamford home prices peaked in 2006, when the median selling price was nearly $700,000. For some perspective on the rapidly rising prices in that city, the median home price was $407,000 just five years earlier – an increase of 72 percent!

  
  

• Loans For Unemployed Homeowners

  Congressman Barney Frank wants to set aside $2 billion in rescue funds that banks have repaid to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosure. Frank is reportedly planning to introduce a bill next week that would give homeowners who’ve lost their jobs and can’t keep up with mortgage payments loans.

  
  

• Another State Looking At Connecticut’s Foreclosure Mediation Program

  Massachusetts is trying to set up a foreclosure mediation program that is similar to Connecticut’s. A Massachusetts lawmaker has filed a bill to require lenders to meet with a trained mediator and a homeowner who’s defaulted to try to negotiate and reach some type of agreement.

  
  

• Will Trial Loan Modifications Stick?

  Federal officials and mortgage loan servicing companies have been patting themselves on the back for putting half a million struggling homeowners into trial mortgage modifications.

  
  

• Ailing Condo Market Could Get Worse

  Connecticut’s condominium market has been clobbered this year. Condominium sales have dropped by double-digit percentages — sometimes as much as 35 percent to over 40 percent — year-over-year for 18 months straight.

  
  

• House Sales Dragging in Fairfield County But Report Gives Hope For Recovery

  Single-family home sales in Fairfield County have plunged to the lowest level in over two decades. There were 3,756 home sales in the first three quarters of 2009.

  
  

• A Boost For Slow Real Estate Season

  President Obama and Congress delivered an early Christmas gift to real estate agents with the extension and expansion of the homebuyer tax credit.

  
  

• More Short Sale Trouble

  Homeowners with two mortgages or those who used 100 percent financing to purchase their residences and are now trying to negotiate a short sale may be facing even more trouble in the future.

  
  

• Realtors Say Home Prices Heading Up

  By now, most real estate industry professionals have already heard about the rosy forecast that the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors has made.

  
  

• The Housing Market’s Sweet Spot

  If you’re looking for one bright spot in Connecticut’s sluggish housing market it may very well be sales of lower-priced homes. Sales of single-family homes priced $299,000 and lower have actually climbed this year.

  
  

• Blame Game

  The Obama administration is putting the pressure on lenders to provide permanent loan modifications for homeowners in danger of foreclosure. So far, the federal government’s efforts to prevent foreclosures by getting mortgage companies and banks to rewrite loans have fallen short.

  
  

• Finally, Some Good News for Connecticut’s Condo Market

  Connecticut’s condominium market has been in a major slump for at least three years. There hasn’t been an increase in monthly condo sales year-over-year statewide in over three years. That changed in October.