CT House Prices Up Nearly 10% Over Last Year, Report Says

House prices in Connecticut were up nearly 10% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024, a trend of increased prices that’s stretched across the past couple of years as housing stock remains historically low. Connecticut saw the seventh highest appreciation in price across the country. Every state had year-over-year increases, and the United States as a whole saw a nearly 7% increase in house prices, according to the latest House Price Index report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

“Right now there’s not enough houses even for people who have to move, let alone people who want to move,” said Carl Lantz, president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors and a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Realty. The median sales price for May is $440,000 statewide, Lantz said. Vermont had the highest increase at about 13%. Washington, D.C. saw a slight drop in prices, according to the House Price Index.

“U.S. house prices continued to grow at a steady pace in the first quarter [of 2024],” said Anju Vajja, deputy director for FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistic, in a press release. “Over the last six consecutive quarters, the low inventory of homes for sale continued to contribute to house price appreciation despite mortgage rates that hovered around 7%.”

Connecticut real estate agents said they expect high prices and low inventory for the foreseeable future. “I think it’s stabilizing so it won’t be such a frenetic market, but I think that we still have and will continue to have a constant flow of demand based on the demographics,” said Tammy Felenstein, the 2022 president of CT Realtors and strategic growth and sales manager at William Raveis in Fairfield.

In June 2023, there were 3,234 new listings in Connecticut. As of Thursday, there had been 3,232 new listings posted to the Multiple Listing Service in May. The service is a platform available to real estate agents to see houses for sale.