Do the positive forecasts for a great 2013 for the housing sector really apply to Connecticut real estate?
Despite several recent challenges and uncertainty all predictions are for a stellar 2013 when it comes to the U.S. housing market. National statistics show housing starts surging, home builder confidence up, marketing time for homes dropping, vacancies down, rents rising and home sales, pending home sales, home prices and even home equity up.
However, we also know that while national housing data is often a good sign of general trends, they don’t always directly reflect what is immediately going on in any given local real estate market.
So what’s going on with Connecticut real estate now?
New numbers show that despite some attempting to put a positive spin on the fallout from Sandy mortgage delinquencies are stacking up in the parts of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York which were hardest hit by Sandy. Many of course hope that most of these cases are temporary and government assistance, insurance payouts and lender workouts will prevent a good deal of them from ever becoming foreclosures.
Other good news on this front is the second Sandy aid package making it through with $51 billion on its way in addition to the $9.7 billion approved on January 4th. Of course insurance companies will still have to cough up to cover a good portion of the $80 billion in estimated losses from the super-storm too.
Many have bashed and tried to stall this second Sandy aid package due to a huge portion of it being designated for “longer-term” projects and improvements to infrastructure. However, this is a critical part of the bill and this $33.7 billion portion of the funds will go a long way to not just protecting Connecticut real estate from future hurricanes and improving services but will help to protect the real estate market and no doubt even help to increase its value, while boosting the local economy as well.
A new report from local Connecticut real estate agents also shows single family homes sales rising 16% in the last quarter of 2012, with pending sales up 14% year over year too. This suggests a strong uptick in the local market which should be accompanied by rising home prices as well.
