Monday, February 19, 2018

Urgency at Last


Forget the calendar.  We've been smoking hot for the past few months in the Commercial Division.  Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2017, we finally started to see the uptick we've been waiting for over the past few seasons.  December 2017 saw gross commissions that were ten times that of December 2016.  January kept up that trend, with commissions five times over the January of the previous year.  February is also running way ahead.

Even better, we are seeing immediate activity on the kinds of listings we said would move quickly if we could get listings of that type.  For instance, there has long been a shortage of industrial buildings under 20,000 square feet for sale.  The listing we recently posted in East Haven was shown over and over again in the first week, and went under contract almost at once.

All of this is despite January weather that was much worse than what we saw last year.  It was cold, it snowed and was icy a lot, schools were cancelled, and spirits lagged.  Yet real estate moved briskly.  I guess we can officially forget about the old pattern, where sales follow weather patterns.

Now that the stock market has begun to hiccup, we expect even more demand for other investment vehicles.  We have already seen investors coming from NYC and other places, looking to place cash into something safer, or at least cheaper.  That out-of-state interest has, in turn, caused local developers and investors to take another look, and also to bid higher, on such properties.  Multifamilies are still in great demand, and we think that will spill over into other types of buildings, and into communities outside of downtown New Haven.

If this is our market when it's dark and cold outside, we can't wait for spring!

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