By John Engel
It is October and that means it’s time to paint a picture of the Fairfield County real estate market through 9 months. I’ll compare New Canaan with peers Darien and Westport and include large-market Stamford as a contrasting baseline.
Median Sales Price – All Property Types – New Canaan ($1.973m) is up year over year +6.1% with Darien ($1.962) up +4.5%. Expect 5% annual inflation in our housing market for the next few years, about equal with rates, as supply remains constrained. Westport is down this year -4.7%, about $100,000 from a high of $2.1 this time last year. Stamford, with a median of $690,000 is up +19% from this time last year illustrating continued resilience in markets below $1 million. Below $1 million there are 3 houses for sale in Darien, 3 in New Canaan and 1 in Westport.
Median Sales Price – Single Family Only – When we remove condominiums New Canaan ($2.359m) median price rises substantially +16.2%. Darien ($2.025m), has far fewer condos and the increase of +5.9% reflects that. Westport houses ($2.215m) rose +3.0% and the Stamford ($875k) single-family market rose +7.1% since last year. Darien had a big month, 20 house sales with a median and average over $3 million while New Canaan lagged with only 5 house sales in September showing a median of $1.6 and an average of $2.0. Westport had a typical month of 24 sales with median and average coming in just over $2 million. What this tells me is that the steadily decreasing inventory in these three markets, Darien, New Canaan, and Westport continues to move along in tandem. Customers for one are typically a customer for all three.
Median Price Per Foot – All Property Types – All four markets showed an increase in the price per square foot this month, and for the rolling 3 month, 6 month and 12 month averages. The results are pretty consistent, flat until mid 2021 and rising steadily ever since. In the past year, across all property types, Darien ($635), up 10.1% remains $100 per square foot more expensive than New Canaan ($534) or Westport ($533), up +5.3% and 7.5% respectively.
Homes for Sale – All Property Types – Once again we see a decline year over year in the number of homes available in each town, with one glaring exception. New Canaan has 82, down -12.8%, Westport 87, down 27.5%, Stamford 205, down -10.9%, and Darien has 36 for sale, down -23.5%. The surprise is Wilton with 47 homes for sale, a +42.4% increase from a year ago. What happened? Did a large condo project come online? No, Wilton has 4 condos for sale, down from 5 a year ago. The 43 single family homes for sale in Wilton is above last September’s mark of 28, but consistent with last October’s high of 47. Wilton seems to show peak inventory in October, whereas in New Canaan the months of peak inventory are May and June with 74.
Breaking News – Manresa Island – Electricity costs are way up. That’s not news. I read that in the New Canaan Sentinel. Several decommissioned nuclear power plants are being re-commissioned. Also, not news. But it caused me to wonder what would happen to the decommissioned Norwalk power plant sitting on 125-acres of ecologically delicate shoreline, known as Manresa Island. Would the steady drumbeat of development win out over the Norwalk communities desire to make this a public space. A year ago I met with some of the activists who were trying to protect a small part of the site from mixed use development including a marina and condominiums. Connecticut has a housing crisis and a deepening energy crisis and both interests saw potential in this site. Today the New York Times announced that a local couple, Austin and Allison McChord, have purchased the site for $40 million, will clean it up for another $80 million, and then donate what is almost 2 miles of shoreline as a public park. This is a best-case scenario. In the past year the town of Darien has saved Great Island. New Canaan has restored the Bristow Bird Sanctuary. And, now we and Norwalk are getting the gift of Manresa.
How will the port strike affect home prices? 36 ports on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico closed Tuesday morning. It will affect real estate. The market hates uncertainty and supply-chain disruption has both a direct and indirect effect on home prices. Building materials such as lumber and furniture are directly affected. Indirectly (we saw during covid) that supply-chain disruption shows up as inflation and inflation influences Fed policy and mortgage rates follow. Simply put, even a short port strike could have an adverse effect on the Spring real estate market.
Notes From the Monday Meeting: This week my team is bringing on a condo in Greenwich for $800,000, a house in New Canaan for $1.295 and a house in North Stamford for $2 million. Why list in the Fall market? In one case the owner got a good deal on something he wants to buy down south. Another is an estate sale and the kids all live somewhere else. The third property is an investment decision: the rental income is no longer worth the time spent managing the property. In a fourth case, health has delayed listing till Spring, and in a fifth case the family’s accountant wants an opinion of value so he can render an opinion. There are as many reasons to buy and to sell as there are houses. One good thing about this cycle in the market, favoring sellers, is liquidity and efficiency. Most of us can find a willing buyer relatively soon after listing.
John Engel, a broker with the Engel Team at Douglas Elliman, spotted an actor at his open house last weekend, a family moving from L.A. “for the schools.” It’s always been more common to spot a celebrity in Greenwich or Westport, not so much in New Canaan or Darien. The rare celebrities who find their way here pick this town specifically because we’re so sleepy. We are the kind of people who say, “Should I have known who that was?” Paul Simon told our Rotary Club that he liked that quality about New Canaan, a regular picking through the bins at Gramophone Records.
