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SCMP Reporter

Kevin and Linda Smith were looking for a new home with more space for themselves, their two sons and Mr Smith's dog-training business.

 A four-bedroom farmhouse built in 1810 with 3.6 hectares of land in Connecticut beckoned.

 Mr Smith said he and his wife first saw it on March 1, and five hours later they signed a contract with the owner.

 The dizzying speed of the agreement left them a little queasy because they had not even put their own house on the market. Their anxiety evaporated when their house also sold quickly.

 The buyers, another young family, also moved quickly. Mr Smith said they began negotiating the price less than an hour after walking in the door, and signed a contract the next day.

 Apparently concerned that the Smiths might be lured away by a better offer, the buyers gave them a significant, non-refundable down payment in return for a contract stipulation taking the house off the market.

 The speed of the transactions reflects the market in which Connecticut is enjoying its best residential real-estate trade in a decade.

 Houses are selling in days, instead of languishing for months, and it is not unusual for sellers to receive multiple offers, some of them topping the listing price.

 Real-estate brokers compare the market to the heady 1980s, but with an important difference: prices so far have remained stable, rather than soaring - driven by high demand and low supply. Real estate agents can only complain that good properties are not coming on the market fast enough to keep up with buyers.

 'It is about time,' said John Alubicki, manager of DeWolf New England Real Estate in Avon, which represented the Smiths.

 'I can't tell you if it's up 19 per cent, 25 per cent, or 75 per cent, and I don't care,' said Barbara Schmerzler, a broker in Westport and president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors.

 Ms Schmerzler attributed the rise in market activity to improvement in the economy, the burgeoning stock market and generally high consumer confidence. People were no longer afraid of losing their jobs, she said.

 Further fuelling the market were the lowest mortgage interest rates in 20 years, she added.

 Many renters have found it cheaper to buy a house than continue to rent, especially since a shortage of attractive apartments has driven up rents across the state.

 And new Federal tax regulations allowing sellers to keep more of their capital gains also have generated a lot of market activity.

 Ms Schmerzler also said different regions of the state had different forces at work in their markets.

 Fairfield County has seen New Yorkers, flush with money from bonuses and stocks, competing with corporate executives relocating from other states, and with residents who want to buy a bigger house or move into a better neighbourhood.

 Litchfield County, especially around Sharon and Kent, is attracting New Yorkers looking for a second home, as well as retirees.

 Many of these retirees were in their 50s and 60s, rather than the 70-year-olds who had characterised this market group in the past, Ms Schmerzler said.

 Throughout the centre of the state, the improving economic climate for small businesses has generated a lot of buying and selling among young families and first-time buyers, as well as early retirees who often use their nest eggs to open small businesses.

 Along the shoreline, retirees and prosperous families are competing for views of Long Island Sound.

 Ms Schmerzler said suburban prices ranged from about US$90,000 for small Cape Cods and condominiums in places like East Hartford and Manchester to $300,000 to $500,000 for an average house in Westport, to estates worth millions of dollars in New Canaan and Darien.

 In every region, it has become difficult to find an attractive, well-kept house with a good location at the lower end of the price range.

 The large cities - Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford - have not seen their real-estate markets improve as much as in the rest of the state, but Ms Schmerzler said single-family homes and condominiums in those communities have just begun selling faster.

 Brokers first noticed the improving home market last summer, and it has accelerated steadily since then. The spring season used to be the busiest, but that tradition ended about 10 years ago, said Marilyn Maurer, a broker in Madison.

 Usually, the market slowed around Christmas and New Year, but not this time, which gave it a lot of momentum to the start of 1998, she said. The snow-free, mild winter kept builders at work and buyers on the hunt.

 Harry and Lois Fischer, of Avon, wanted to buy a condominium for their daughter, Sharon, who was renting. They found a unit they liked, also in Avon, last September, and found themselves in a bidding battle.

 'There were three other people who wanted that condo all on the same night,' Mrs Fischer said. The price for the unit was $132,000, and their bid of $130,000 won.

 Similarly, Thomas and Charlene Bayley bought a condominium in Avon. Mr Bayley, who is employed in Buenos Aires, said they wanted a home base in Connecticut.

 In December, the Bayleys went looking for a condominium in a gated and guarded complex. They found it in a little over two hours on New Year's Eve, quickly agreed with the owner on a price, signed a contract on January 2 and settled on January 30.

 The house they had rented, which the owner was unable to sell a year ago, recently was sold without even being listed, Mr Bayley said.

 That the ease and speed with which houses sell, and the bidding battles that sometimes occur, have not driven up prices is a curious phenomenon.

 Ms Schmerzler said that buyers were 'picky', and did not want to get into the situation that some people who bought in the late 1980s found themselves. Many bought houses at prices that by the 1990s exceeded the value of their properties.

 Some brokers are concerned, nonetheless. 'I get a little worried about it, because if a nice house comes on the market at a reasonable price, there are two or three offers on it at the asking price,' said Anne Smith, a broker in Fairfield. 'That's what happened in the '80s.'  For the moment the housing market demands buyers with steady nerves and a chequebook at hand. 'The number of situations in which there are multiple offers is something we're seeing quite frequently,' said Mr Alubicki. 'It's a daily occurrence.'  One of the real estate agents in his office recently had a buyer who was interested enough in a property to make an offer that was higher than the listing price, but lost it to a still higher bidder.

I get a little worried about it, because if a nice house comes on the market at a reasonable price, there are two or three offers on it at the asking price 



Fastest cheque books rule booming US homes market