April 2015 Sees Advances

April 2015 saw frigid temperatures for most of the month, but statistically it was a hot month. The biggest winner for the month was the town of Fairfield with 137 homes going to escrow. an increase of 114 per cent over the previous April.  To give a sense of what this means, this number is greater than sales in a town like Weston for an entire year.   Of course Fairfield is approximately 5 times bigger than Weston, but even in those terms it is impressive. Year to date Fairfield has 38% more contracts than at this time last year.  Closed sales are up 8.7%, but those numbers should jump in the coming months.  The median price is running at $550,000 so most of these sales are at an entry level.

Westport also had a good month, seeing 54 properties going to contract (versus 34 in April 2014), yet year to date Westport is slightly behind 2014. The median price is also lagging behind 2014 numbers, now sitting at $1,250,000, a decrease of 7.4%.

April was another good month for Weston.  Monthly escrows were up 87% and closed sales thus far are almost 18% above 2014 levels.  The median price has increased modestly (2.9%) to $799,000, but there have been some breakthroughs on higher end inventory.  Year to date escrows are up 47.6% so Weston has definitely turned the corner from the slowdown of a few years ago.

Wilton continues to be a solid performer.  37 properties went to contract in April compared to 21 in April 2014, and for the year Wilton is up almost 23% on contracts, though closed sales are running 14% behind last year.

May has started off even hotter (in real estate and real terms) than April.  Many feel that this is the result of colder winter weather.  We will have to see what kind of legs this spring market has.