WILTON — The surge in real estate sales that began in June has continued unabated as the town recorded 56 single-family home closings in August, bringing the year-to-date total to 222, far surpassing the first eight months of the previous seven years. Wilton had 233 closings in all of 2019.
A market report by Halstead Real Estate shows August sales marked an 81-percent increase over the 31 homes sold in the same month last year.
The 222 year-to-date total of single-family home closings is a 35-percent increase over the 165 closings for the same period in 2019.
“Remote working has removed the obstacle of commuting from mid-Fairfield County, which I felt had been a challenge for our market in recent years,” said John DiCenzo, Halstead’s Executive Director of Sales, Westport & Wilton. He called the recent market “remarkable.”
DiCenzo took a look at single-family home sales in Wilton going back to 2000. In Wilton, there have been five months that surpassed 50 closings:
June 2000 — 55.
July 2004 — 58.
August 2004 — 51.
July 2020 — 59.
August 2020 — 57.
Year-to-date condo sales have been steady, with 20 sales so far this year, a few shy of the 23 sold in 2016, the most for the first eight-month period of the past seven years.
The average single-family closing price in August jumped 17 percent, from $757,574 in 2019 to $885,886 this year. That helped bring the dollar volume of house and condo closings for January through August to $197 million, up 46 percent from the same time a year ago.
The summer surge of homes began suddenly, with 34 homes sold in June, 59 in July and now 56 in August. That compares to a total of 73 from January through May, half of what was sold in the past three months.
Based on the 42 pending sales as of Aug. 31, robust activity can be expected to continue, since this is an increase of 200 percent over the 14 homes pending at this time in 2019.
There were 49 pending sales on July 31 and 53 on July 1, according to Halstead.
For the first eight months, the majority of home sales — 63 — occurred in the $500,000 to $700,000 range. This was the strongest section of the market last year as well. There are eight sales pending in this price range.
Seeing a jump, however, was the $700,000 to $800,000 range with 37 sales, compared to 23 last year. There are six sales pending here.
Although the sales numbers are small, the upper end has seen a 200-percent increase, with 12 homes priced $1.5 to $2 million sold so far this year, compared to just four last year. There is one sale pending in this price range.
There were 157 active listings as of Aug. 31, compared to 196 at the same time last yer.
Condos
There have been 20 condos sold so far this year, compared to 15 last year. The average closing price has increased over that time to $365,175, an 11-percent increase over last year. There were 18 condos on the market as of Aug. 31, compared to 16 last year.
Regional sales
As a whole, summer sales for lower Fairfield County have been very strong. Across the 12 towns and cities included in the Halstead report, there were 880 closings in August, a 62-percent increase over last August. This is the highest in at least 15 years, according to the report. Those towns and cities include Greenwich, Stamford, Darien, New Canaan, Norwalk, Westport, Wilton, Fairfield, Ridgefield, Weston, Redding, and Easton.
The average house closing price got a big boost from demand, climbing to $1.3 million, the highest in the last eight year, the report said.
Across lower Fairfield County, the number of pending sales more than doubled to 831 on Aug. 31, compared to 396 at the end of August 2019.
Looking at year-to-date data, each of the towns and cities showed a double-digit increase in sales. Leading the way is Westport, with 398 closings through Aug. 31, a 67-percent increase over the 239 recorded last year. The average sales price in Westport is $1.54 million.
Greenwich had the highest average sales price at $2.56 million, followed by New Canaan at $1.62 million.
Other nearby towns showed the following year-to-date sales:
Darien — 269 +29 percent.
New Canaan — 231 +34 percent.
Redding — 116 +40 percent.
Ridgefield — 297 +28 percent.
Weston — 170 +49 percent.