Two thirds of the homes sold in 2000 with sale prices in excess of $1 million were located in California.

Joining California in the top five in 2000 were Massachusetts (416), Illinois (413), Florida (381) and Connecticut (353).

The baby boomers are reaching their peak home buying years with ample resources to move up to their “dream home.”

While Ridgefield is still in big demand, the local buyers who usually help drive our marketplace are not trading up as much as last year due to the fact that the stock market has drained many a portfolio. The transferred people are still out there but they usually are not in the very high dollar bracket and I’m afraid we are losing many young buyers to Newtown and surrounding areas due to our lack of inventory and high prices. The day of getting a starter house at a reasonable price is almost over.

Last year at this time we had 184 homes on the market here and today there are 155 so you can see the buyers have fewer choices. Our average market time is still 93 days. Some homes have sold in a week but that is not typical but more people seem to hear about those. If a house is priced competitively, and has been well maintained, they sell more quickly. Today’s buyer likes everything updated and if the home is overpriced, it will sit longer and usually have to negotiate the price down. Some things never change.

To date we have nine homes for sale from $289,000 - $400,000. There are 32 homes from $400,000 - $650,000. There are 22 homes for sale from $650,000 - $1,000,000. There are 38 homes over $l, 000,000, eight of which are over $2,000,000.

The winter housing market has been a struggle partly because winter has been forever, and also because there are so few choices for buyers. I recently showed homes thirty years old and older to a client in the $400- $500,000 range and they bought a brand new home in Newtown for that price. We are also losing to other towns as well. It’s a great time to sell! If you know anyone who is thinking of buying our selling, I would love to hear from you.