In suburban Connecticut, real estate market remains strong

By Scott Benjamin

Connecticut is a nice place to live, but until recently a lot of people have chosen not to buy a home there.

Connecticut was rated by 24/7 Wall Street last year as the fourth best state to live in – after Massachusetts, Colorado and New Jersey. It was rated that high, in part, because of its long average life expectancy, the number of residents with college degrees and median income.

Yet, the Nutmeg State had the second lowest per capita population growth over the last 10 years, according to U.S. Census figures.

The Washington Post recently reported that Connecticut’s population only grew by 0.9 percent over the last decade. Per capita, Mississippi, at 0.2 percent, was the only state that grew less.

States near Connecticut had notable population increases: Massachusetts at 7.4 percent; New Jersey, 5.7 percent; Rhode Island, 4.3 percent; and New York state, 4.2 percent.

In December 2019, Dan Keune – then the president of CT Realtors, one of the largest trade associations in the state - said since the Great Recession ended in 2010, nationally home prices have increased 43 percent, but only eight-tenths of one percent in Connecticut.

"The market is flat in Connecticut, but it is not dead," Keune, who is based in Ellington, said at that time.

However, with the pandemic, there have been alterations.

The Wall Street Journal reported last July that there is “a glimmer of hope” now in the Connecticut market.

For the last 11 months it has been robust with multiple offers for homes and a rise in sales prices. With some of the beach areas closed, if you have a swimming pool you could sell your house within hours.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that buyers purchased the most homes in Connecticut in 15 years in 2020, propelling median-sale prices to a record high, according to a new report.

There were 38,641 single-family home sales in the state in 2020, a 16.6% jump from the prior year, according to the Warren Group, a real-estate research firm. That was the most Connecticut home sales since 2005.

Median sales prices also rose to $300,000 in 2020, a 15.4% increase from the prior year and the highest price on record in the state, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“People are interested in Connecticut so that they can be in a suburban area where they can work from home, and there are people already living in the state that want a bigger home in the town where they are because they want more work at home space,” Carol Christiansen, the current president of CT Realtors, said in a phone interview with Patch.com.

She predicted the market will remain robust through the remainder of 2021.

The Wall Street Journal reported last July that Connecticut stumbled in recent decades on a backfiring bet that people wanted to live in small towns. Instead, young families and professionals rushed to cities like nearby New York and Boston. Early this year, Connecticut found itself sliding into a new recession having never recovered from the last one. No state fared worse during the post-2009 economic expansion. Now New Yorkers are fleeing a city hard-hit by Covid-19, including for Connecticut’s pastoral towns.”

Christiansen said, “However, there still is a lack of inventory,” noting that, in particular, there are very few starter homes available, a shortcoming that has plagued Connecticut for decades.

Also, Connecticut is not just small in land, but of that land, there is a lot that is not available for housing or economic development.

For years, land-use attorneys and real estate professionals have said the state’s commitment to open space and revolutionary-era sometimes deter development.

Consider that Sharon has 58.8 square miles of land – well more than three times the 16 square miles in Bridgeport, which is Connecticut’s most populous city. However, Bridgeport has 144,599 people and Sharon has just 2,782.

Developer Mark Greenberg of Litchfield, the former congressional candidate in the Fifth District, told Patch.com in 2014 that, "A lot of people in Connecticut like it the way it is. They like the revolutionary look, such as the Green in Litchfield. They want to have slow and careful development."

Christiansen said that trend will likely continue.

However, Christiansen, whose office is in the Gales Ferry section of Ledyard, said there are notable changes in the southeastern part of the state, where dignitaries christen submarines by smashing a champagne bottle against them.

She noted that the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton – a major defense contractor - is now building not one, but two submarines a year. She added that more of the personnel at the nearby naval base are seeking to live off site.

CT Realtors has enlarged its profile since holding a rally in 2017 at Horace Bushnell Park in Hartford that was keynoted by University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma.

The organization sponsored gubernatorial candidate debates during the primaries and the general election in 2018.

She said CT Realtors supports Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D-Greenwich) recent comments that he would veto the proposed budget by the General Assembly’s Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee which would, among other things, increase capital gains and consumption taxes.

CT Mirror reported that the governor said, “For the first time in many years, Connecticut’s got really good momentum, and that’s in terms of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and employment and new businesses and people moving to the state of Connecticut. I think part of that is people have recognized we’re beginning to get our fiscal house in order.”

Christiansen indicated that CT Realtors, which has about 17,000 members now has more political clout at the State Capitol.

She said, “Our board members have done a good job in contacting legislators.”