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Spring housing market: No strong bounce-back after chilly winter

The spring real estate market in Ridgefield didn’t have a whole lot of spring in it this year. Though sales warmed up a bit after some frigid winter months, the second quarter was hardly a definitive turnaround.

“This is not a market for people who want to test the market with a flamboyant price,” said Lonnie Shapiro of Coldwell Banker. “In this market you’ve got to win the price war and the beauty contest.”

Most good news came with an asterisk. For instance, single-family home prices were up, but the number of homes that sold was down.

The average sale price jumped to $798,473 in the second quarter, up from $734,931, according to a report prepared by Colette Kabasakalian of Prudential Connecticut Realty. But on the down-side only 38 homes have sold so far this quarter, compared to 43 in the first quarter.

Spring is typically the busiest month in Ridgefield real estate and marks a notable improvement from the winter. Last year, the volume of sales went from 36 to 59 houses from the first quarter to the second quarter.

Conveyance tax, which applies to all real estate transactions, not just homes, is another metric of the market.

The town estimated $19.8 million in real estate sales per month this fiscal year, which would generate $49,500 in conveyance taxes, at 0.25%. Each month this quarter, revenue has been under that number, but not far off.

In April, the town collected $47,108; in May, $48,762; and so far in June, $40,762. The asterisk here is that the warmer months were expected to make up for the winter’s numbers, which hovered around half that amount.

With the typically more active spring season, more houses are listed, too, saturating the market somewhat.

There were about 208 houses on the market toward the end of the first quarter, and now there are 286, though Ms. Shapiro points out 34 have deals in place, so “252 are truly active.”

State Rep. John Frey, co-owner of Century 21, doesn’t see the inventory, which he said has hovered around 220 since 1987, as a sign for concern until it nears 400. Last year, it was up to 340, Mr. Frey said.

There is an additional “shadow inventory” made up of potential listings kept off market by owners waiting to enter the market at a better time. There are also houses on which owners have stopped paying their mortgage but the banks haven’t taken ownership of the property, Mr. Frey added.

Potentially adding to real estate setbacks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are set to reduce loan limits of federally backed mortgages by the end of September. The limits were ratcheted up in 2009 in high cost loan areas, from around $417,000 nationwide to about $730,000. In Ridgefield that amount is around $709,000. Above that amount, mortgages are called jumbo loans and they are not federally insured against default, making them a less safe bet for lenders.

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