Home sales in New Canaan declined 24% year-over-year in January, according to new data.
In addition to the overall decrease in single-family home sales, from 17 to 13, the median price dropped 13% in the period, from $1,355,000 to $1,175,000, according to data from the New Canaan Board of Realtors.
Here’s a snapshot of home sales activity for the month:
Single-Family Home Sales, January 2020
| Units Sold | ||
|---|---|---|
| Total | 13 | 17 |
| January '20 | January '19 | |
| $0 to $999,999 | 2 | 5 |
| $1 milion to $1.99 million | 8 | 9 |
| $2 milion to $2.99 million | 1 | 3 |
| $3 million to $5 million | 2 | 0 |
| $5 million+ | 0 | 0 |
*Data only includes homes listed for sale on the NCMLS and does not include condos.
Houses spent an average of 237 days on the market, the data say, compared to 260 days one year ago. In all, there were 237 homes on the market at the end of January 2019, compared to 177 last month, according to the data.
In January, the total number of condominiums sold increased to five, up from four the prior year, the data say. The median sales price of condominiums fell 25% in the period, from $775,00 to $585,000.
Despite the fact that there were 4 fewer sales this January vs last, leading to a somewhat sensational headline, the more important news is that inventory is down from 237 to 177–a 25% decrease and very good news for New Canaan real estate! Lower inventory over time leads to higher prices.
Thank you for submitting your comment, Nancy.
How is citing a data-based percentage “somewhat sensational”? Were you equally concerned by last month’s headline ‘Home Sales Rise 13% in December’? Why didn’t you comment then? What about this one from last fall? Or this one?
(Also, a general request of our readers: Kindly avoid using these comments threads to make somewhat embarrassingly blatant sales pitches.)
Thank you again.
Hi Michael,
As a data junkie who has time on his hands, as you might know the NC MLS data is not comprehensive, in that there are private real estate transactions that do not go through the local MLS service. While this fact is called out in your article, private transactions appear to impact the home sales perspective.
For example, using Town Hall data for January 2020 and excluding condo transactions:
As NC MLS reported:
0-$999MM 2 sales. Official NC Town Hall record has 3 sales.
$1.0-$1.99MM 8 sales. Town Hall has 10 sales.
$2.0-$2.99MM 1 sale. Town Hall has 2 sales
$3.0-$5.0MM 2 sales. Town Hall has 1 sale.
So, NC MLS details 13 sales while there were 16 recorded sales through Town Hall. Using Town Hall data, the mean sales price vs. prior year is up to $1.505MM from 2019’s mean of $1.384MM…with median home prices of $1.213.5MM this January compared to $1.355MM last year.
To the reader who submitted a comment as ‘Idiot Watcher’: Though I appreciate the substance of what you’re saying (sincerely), we do require full and verifiable first and last names, as well as a working email address, from those who post comments. There’s a gate up and so each comment is manually approved by me. Thank you.
I’d like to point out that while real estate agents love to use the median price as a metric of real estate prosperity, it is totally flawed for small towns like NC. A better metric would be price/sqft which yields an accurate picture of town real estate trends.
And Michael, no I’m not complaining at you. Thanks for the news.
Price per square foot also has limitations for the simple reason that it doesn’t take the quantity, quality, or location of the land into account. One of the challenges of assessing year to year changes in real estate values is that we don’t have the benefit of seeing the same property change hands every year. The best we can do is look at comparable sales.
To value a single family home on a square foot basis is an inaccurate method of valuation. It does not take into account the land value of the property.
This type of valuation works well on commercial properties not residential properties.