Sales of new homes sank year-over-year in September in the Hartford, CT market, a move downward following a lift in August 2011. New home sales saw a 36.6% decline from a year earlier to 26 after sales gained 10.5% in August from the year earlier.

In the 12 months ending September 2011, there were 384 new home sales, down from an annualized 399 in August.

New home sales represented 2.9% of overall housing sales, less than 4.0% of sales a year earlier. Following a year-over-year decline in August, sales of new and existing homes also declined year-over-year in September.

In September, the average price of newly sold homes grew year-over-year to $413,304 per unit, a 31.0% rise. This bump is an improvement over the 1.1% rise in August year-over-year.

There was a rise year-over-year in the average mortgage size on new homes along with new home prices. The average mortgage size saw a 4.0% rise to $307,480 in September. Average mortgage size went from $276,848 in August 2010 to $278,732 in August 2011. For new home sales, the average percentage of the price being financed slid 19.3 percentage points from a year earlier. It went from 77.6% in August 2010 to 77.3% in August 2011.

The percentage of new home sales belonging to single-family homes has risen from last year while the portion of new home sales belonging to attached units has dropped. The share of new home sales belonging to single-family homes rose from 58.5% in September 2010 to 92.3% of sales in September 2011. Meanwhile, attached units as a percentage of all new home sales sank to 7.7% of sales from 41.5% of sales.

There was a 3.1% rise year-over-year in the average unit size of newly sold homes to 2,190 square feet in September 2011. The average size of newly sold homes moved from 2,388 square feet in August 2010 to 1,865 square feet in August 2011.

Foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) sales continued to fall from a year earlier in September and did not appear to be dragging the market. Together, foreclosures plus REO sales accounted for 17.4% of existing home sales, down from 28.1% of sales a year earlier. The percentage of existing home sales belonging to foreclosures declined to 8.5% of sales in September from 13.2% a year earlier while REO sales as a percentage of existing home sales fell to 8.9% of sales from 14.9% of sales a year earlier.

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