Connecticut Housing Market Showing Signs of Pickup

You don’t have to go far for sun and sand.  The coast of Connecticut has plenty of that. Last year, Hurricane Sandy left Connecticut’s shoreline pretty beat up, but since then vacation homebuyers have been coming out of the woodwork. On July 6^th, The Hartford Courant reported that sales along the shoreline and Litchfield county, two popular second-home areas in Connecticut were starting to pick up again. The Connecticut housing market is showing signs of improvement.

“Over the last six months, we’ve seen some fairly good values around,” said Michael Blair, a broker at Hunter, Moore & Stearns in Stonington. “Interest rates were low. Supply was high. Now that has diminished a bit. Prices are starting to stabilize. People are peeking their heads out.”

Real estate agents believe that the vacation home market slowed because of the arrival of storms Irene and Sandy the last two summers. Couple the storms with worries about whether prices had truly hit bottom and you have a perfect formula for a falling market.

This increase in sales isn’t limited to Connecticut though. Across the country, buyer confidence in the housing market is surging. The rebound is driven by record low mortgage rates and confidence in the economy. That confidence is spilling into seasonal communities like those found at Lake Tahoe in California and the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.

The Hartford Courant reported that “Vacation-home demand relies on discretionary spending and typically lags behind the broader housing market by about one or two years, indicating secondary properties are on the cusp of a recovery,” according to Jeff Meyers, a housing research consultant with Beverly Hills, California-based real estate firm Kennedy-Wilson Holdings Inc.

The Connecticut shoreline has always been attractive to those seeking a summer or vacation home, and with the recent pickup it appears that now might be the perfect time to seriously consider a secondary home in whatever part of the country you desire.  You can check out a vast selection of seasonal homes in The House Designers vacation house plan collection.  The housing market is picking up so look for your dream home today.