Connecticut Housing Market Hit Hard in February

Single-family home prices in Connecticut tumbled 17.1 percent in February compared to the same month in 2008, according to a report released today by ""The Warren Group"":http://www.thewarrengroup.com, a provider of real estate data for the New England area. It's the fifth consecutive month that median prices have dropped by double-digit percentages in the state.
The median selling price for single-family homes in Connecticut declined $45,000 to $218,000, down from $263,000 in February 2008, The Warren Group reported. Year-to-date the median home price in the state has fallen 17.3 percent.
Timothy M. Warren Jr., CEO of The Warren Group, explained, ""The declines in median home prices have exceeded 10 percent for seven of the last 12 months. We didn’t see such a period of price slumps during Connecticut’s last housing downturn in the early 90s."" Warren noted that prices won’t level off until sales activity picks up substantially for several months straight.
While home sales climbed in other parts of the country last month, particularly in states where foreclosure rates are high, that hasn’t been the case in Connecticut.
Single-family home sales dropped to the slowest sales pace for the month of February in the 20 years that The Warren Group has tracked Connecticut’s housing market. Sales fell 26.1 percent to 1,025, down from 1,387 in February 2008. The research firm reported that a total of 2,088 single-family homes traded in Connecticut during the first two months of 2009, down 31.3 percent from 3,041 last year.
Bank-owned properties accounted for about 5 percent of the state's single-family home sales transactions in February. A total of 51 bank-owned single-family homes were sold in Connecticut in February. By comparison, in nearby Massachusetts and Rhode Island, The Warren Group reported that more than 1 in 10 single-family home sales in February were bank-owned properties.
The Connecticut condominium market also continued to experience sharp drops in sales. Condo sales statewide plunged 42.2 percent compared to the same time last year. Based on The Warren Group's market data, there were 671 condo sales in the first two months of the year, down 40.9 percent from 1,135 a year earlier. Connecticut's median condo price retreated 11.2 percent to $171,250 in February.