Ridgefield Market Report: 2011 Year In Review

The Power of Consumer Confidence

For 2011, the Ridgefield Real Estate market can best be described as divergent. The sever winter weather resulted in a delayed start of the 2011 selling season. Once home sales finally gained some momentum in late spring and into summer, a damaging hurricane followed shortly thereafter by a record snowstorm in late October diminished any hope for a last quarter increase in sales. these extraordinary events clearly impacted consumer confidence levels and were compounded by the European debt crisis and our own political and economic concerns.

The Value Factor.

Value remains the catalyst in all real estate transactions, spanning over all price segments. Buyers have become more educated with the abundance of information available to them. Motivated sellers realize pricing is critical and in turn, have been able to take advantage of current values when they choose to up-size or down-size. While it’s still too early to predict how the local market will perform in 2012, I am cautiously optimistic. The holiday shopping season showed strong spending and many financial analysts predict the worst is behind us. With long term fundamentals remaining intact, 2012 should show signs of improvement.

Download Ridgefield Market Report 2011 Year in Review

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Ridgefield Market Report: 2011 Mid-Year Review

Holding Our Own

What a difference a few degrees makes! As soon as the weather improved, so did our local market here in Ridgefield. Weather has had a big influence as well as current economic conditions. We experienced an uptick in activity thanks to the positive news coming out of Wall Street regarding jobs and bonuses, the wake of a strong stock market performance and corporations transferring employees to the area again. Comparing unit sales for the first 6 months of 2011 vs. the same period a year ago, the largest increases were in the over $1,000,000 segment and under $500,000. So far this year, 27% of the unit sales have been in the $1,000,000+ segment vs. 18% for the same period 2010. The 10% increase in unit sales for homes priced under $500,000, demonstrates first time homebuyers are taking advantage of low interest rates and are now able to enter the Ridgefeld housing market. Unlike other markets across the nation, our home values remain steady in most price categories. Pending Sales for the last 3 months are up 42% when compared to the same period last year. Much of this data points to a slow, steady recovery. Remember, Real Estate is very local.

Moving in the Right Direction

Prices are higher in Fair!eld County and Connecticut on both a median price and price per sq. ft. basis. This seems to be due to increased activity in the higher price ranges. New Canaan and Westport continue to experience double digit increases in both unit sales and median sales price.

Download Ridgefield Real Estate Market Report January – June 2011

http://184.172.173.17/~karlam/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2011-mid-year-report.pdf