Week 128: The May Divergence
We looked at the May market reports for 12 towns. Low inventory is not the same as a hot market. A town can have two months of supply and…
The John Engel real estate column has become a trusted resource for anyone watching housing trends in Fairfield County. Each week John explains the market in plain language, blending data, local context, and insights from decades of experience representing buyers and sellers. The column helps readers understand pricing shifts, inventory cycles, zoning debates, development patterns, and the economic forces shaping New Canaan and surrounding towns. Whether analyzing why one neighborhood is outperforming another, breaking down mortgage and interest-rate trends, or explaining how national policy affects local real estate, John’s column provides practical guidance that helps homeowners make better decisions. Readers include first-time buyers, investors, downsizing empty-nesters, and longtime residents who want a clear view of what is happening in the market and why it matters.
Each week you’ll find a clear take on what’s moving the market right now — inventory, pricing, mortgage rates, negotiation patterns, and what those shifts mean for buyers and sellers. Some columns zoom in on New Canaan and Fairfield County. Others pull back to the national view and explain how policy, psychology, and macro trends show up in local deals.
Use the archive below to browse by date, then click any cover image to open the full episode or column. If you’re looking for a specific topic — pricing strategy, bidding wars, new construction, school-driven demand, downsizing, or luxury market trends — this page is designed to be a quick jumping-off point.
We looked at the May market reports for 12 towns. Low inventory is not the same as a hot market. A town can have two months of supply and…
My grandfather grew up on Franklin Street in Stamford. His father published the Stamford Advocate. My grandfather taught in the Stamford…
Norwalk is growing faster than anywhere else in Fairfield County. Former office buildings are becoming apartments. Industrial waterfront is…
When my wife and I bought our first house on South Avenue, we paid $230,000 for a small antique on a quarter-acre lot. Behind the detached…
Low inventory is only the starting point. The Hotness Index asks which markets are hot, and why. When a house “just like yours” sells for a…
18 takeaways from this week’s ‘Boroughs and Burbs’ show, with Jonathan Miller and Scott Hobbs joining Roberto Cabrera and John Engel. Low…
Real Estate Is Not a Numbers Business We would like to believe real estate is a numbers business. But people don’t make rational decisions…
I’ve broken lower Fairfield County down by how each town actually functions — not how it photographs.First, the “big four” are Greenwich,…
This may sound like a story about a classroom. Or artificial intelligence. Or people gaming a system.It’s all of those things. And it’s…
Manhattan reacts like a stock market. Deals are made or pulled in real time, so when uncertainty hits, you see it immediately in contract…
“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for ’tis the only thing in this world that lasts.” That observation comes…
Darien is, in many ways, the very best of Fairfield County. That’s a begrudging admission from this third-generation New Canaanite because…
I just met a man from Nebraska in the lobby who said, “What is the Glass House?” After my brief explanation he asked, “So, why is this…
Fourteen years ago, I wrote “Top 10 Reasons New Canaan is Unique” in the New Canaan Advertiser. The article was reprinted in the Patch,…
Super Bowl Sunday ads were dominated by AI companies, the single largest category of advertiser. That felt like a signal. We are fascinated…
I’ve broken lower Fairfield County down by how each town actually functions — not how it photographs. First, the “big four” are Greenwich,…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Discover what it would be like If ‘Dear Abby’ Sold Houses in the real estate…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Discover What Changed in Real Estate Transactions in 2025 and how these updates…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
The Leuthold House in New Canaan, CT, is Allan Gelbin’s modernist masterpiece. Learn how the apprentice surpassed Frank Lloyd Wright’s…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. For readers interested in New Canaan Zoning updates and information, this piece…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. In this piece, we explore how Cathie Wood could reshape real estate through her…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here. Connect & Work With John Engel and The Engel Team As a leading resource for New…
Check out John Engel’s Podcast, Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate Conversation here. Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel…
Check out John Engel’s Podcast, Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate Conversation here. Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel…
Check out John Engel’s Podcast, Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate Conversation here. Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel…
What Hartford Gets Wrong About Housing in New Canaan Check out John Engel’s Podcast, Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate…
White dominates — in cars (27.6%), kitchens (43%), and siding (34%). And in New Canaan, Darien, Westport, Rowayton and Greenwich — where…
What Hartford Gets Wrong About Housing in New Canaan As a Planning & Zoning commissioner, I sit through every application. As a Realtor, I…
“Daddy, tell me a story.” “Ok, it was December 1990 and First Infantry was…” “No daddy, not that kind. I mean one of your real estate…
The phrase “a game of inches” has its roots in sports, particularly football, and has evolved into a metaphor for high-stakes situations…
How’s the Market?“How’s the market?” It’s the question I get asked most often. Sometimes I reach for data—graphs that show trends over…
Ryan Serhant says he won’t stop until he’s #1 in the world. The real estate agent turned star of the #3 Netflix show “Selling New York”…
“How can we help our children buy their first home?” It’s a question people my age are asking. Generation X and Baby Boomers are long real…
Barbie is so 2024. Let’s play Monopoly and Learn about Mortgages! Sun Tzu said, “Know your audience” and I’m writing for homeowners. My…
What’s Normal Anymore? A graph of the last ten years of home sales in New Canaan shows 3,262 sales, 326 in a “normal” year, 4.38% of the…
This Isn’t a Rally, It’s a Relocation Global Shocks, Local Spin Ray Dalio doesn’t forecast downturns. He forecasts breakdowns. “We’re not…
Smart Homes What is a smart home? If “smart” means convenience, efficiency, security and comfort let’s start with something dumb, the…
60% of all sales are occurring above list price. Last month I gave examples of 20 bidding wars where houses traded for 120% of their asking…
For a full snapshot of New Canaan real estate trends and inventory, here’s the March 2025 market report. 1. How has New Canaan’s inventory…
Real estate auction transparency exposes how buyers and sellers behave under pressure, and why open bidding often produces better outcomes…
The Fairfield County real estate market outlook is shaped less by signs, predictions, or headlines and more by long-term value, quality,…
A Room With a View is the 1908 novel by E.M. Forster and a 1985 Merchant & Ivory film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands. The…
Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step,…
New Canaan real estate market data shows why strong property values, low inventory, and stable tax collections continue to support the…
Last week the Dallas Mavericks traded their 25-year-old star, Luka Dončić, one of the two best players in basketball, to the Los Angeles…
The power of demographics to explain our economy and the housing market is often understated. It may be the single biggest influence on…
“The Brutalist” is the hottest movie in the nation, with 10 Oscar nominations. It’s currently playing in New Canaan and has deep New Canaan…
Inauguration Day is a moment for looking forward, and for reflecting on the past. This is a look-back over the bigger ideas in this column,…
As the father of identical twins I get the question, “Are they different?” To me they are very different. To the casual observer not much.…
It snowed here this week, so I want to talk about the impact of snow (and reflected light) on real estate sales. Traditional wisdom is,…
“I’m fascinated by the art of decision-making, especially when it comes to where to live, where to go to college, and where to send your…
This week we explore timely Decision-Making and Commitment as we reflect on 2024 and set goals for 2025. December is when the phone rings.…
In the wake of the election the nation’s attention again turns to taxes. The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2018 (TCJA) was the most significant…
We used the rolling 6-month average to strip away some of the month-to-month volatility. Nevertheless, there are many clues as to what the…
Last week we talked about the empirical effect of elections on real estate. We observed soft even years and stronger odd years. Elections…
Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step,…
Past performance is often used as a warning label to caution against assuming an investment will continue to perform well in the future:…
Zillow, inventor of the controversial Zestimate, has rolled out a new “climate risk threat score” for every house in the country. Zillow…
I read with interest in Good Morning Wilton the story of an historical building owned by the town of Wilton which has fallen into disrepair…
The New Canaan Housing Authority (a non-profit corporation) is attempting to purchase Avalon New Canaan, 9.1 acres, 10 buildings, 104…
It is October and that means it’s time to paint a picture of the Fairfield County real estate market through 9 months. I’ll compare New…
We are facing an existential threat in New Canaan. No, I’m not talking about the annual drumbeat of laws from Hartford which strip away…
Today I am speaking on a panel on industry changes. I am noticing more pressure on buyer’s agents from a number of directions. Sellers are…
t is as if we began the Fall Season with a starter pistol on Labor Day. Buyers and sellers are feeling a newfound urgency to enter the…
Homes for Sale. For the third month in a row the amount of inventory fell in New Canaan and continues to drop around Fairfield County.…
We are at the long-awaited inf lection point where the Fed reverses course and lowers rates. The stock and bond markets rallied this week…
In 1968 midcentury modern architect Richard Foster designed The Round House in Wilton for his own family, a house also known as The…
This week’s column is not really about showing a house. I am being both literal and metaphorical, relevant for those of you in another line…
Pool construction is down 49% since peaking during the pandemic, 2021. And searches in Google for “swimming pool cost” is also down 40%…
We looked at the stats for the first 6 months, comparing towns of similar size and wealth head to head in order to add some context. When…
We can see in this chart that in Manhattan the discount on rents has been close to zero since the beginning of 2024, while across the East…
This week we’ll discuss discount points and assumable loans as two creative ways to approach your next real estate purchase. Purchasing…
New Canaan – There are 73 single-family homes for sale, a -15% drop since last year. Last year we peaked in May with 86 and two years ago…
This is a lost art. I am referring to the property description field on the multiple listing service. The New Canaan MLS limits agents to…
As we approach the end of the Spring market this is the point of the year when we appear to have the most amount of inventory, the crest of…
It’s beach season and Save the Sound has graded all 197 Connecticut beaches on water quality and 75% of them got a grade of A or B. Beaches…
I want to revisit why the New Canaan housing market is so far out balance, favoring sellers, and why prices keep rising, and why this…
People ask, “How long does it take to write the real estate column?” All week. I have dozens of columns rattling around up there, but I…
HEAD-TO HEAD COMPARISON Here’s a head-to-head comparison of the current real estate market conditions for Q1-2024 between Westchester…
Median Sales Price (Single Family) New Canaan: The median sales price stands at $2,161,000, showing a modest quarterly growth (+1.9%) and a…
CLOSED SALESNew Canaan had 32, up from 31 while Darien had 22 down from 32 a year ago. Wilton had 42 sales, up 55% from a year ago while…
Manhattan Market Report Manhattan first quarter sales fell, down 11.3% annually, now below two thousand (1,988), the lowest level in 3…
Many of us are wondering how long it will take until the pendulum swings. How long before the seller’s market becomes a buyer’s market?…
“Over 20% of the world’s wealthiest individuals plan to invest in residential real estate in 2024.”
This is the most important question Realtors answer, and busy agents are answering it every day. It is particularly relevant this month…
We divided 15 markets into 4 groups 1. High-End 2. Cities 3. North of the Parkway and 4. Coastal Neighborhoods to see what comparative…
“Negotiating skills are something else. According to Chris Voss, author of “Never Split the Difference” negotiation is not like combat,…
First, let’s talk about Florida. Hurricanes like Irma, Ian and Michael caused billions of dollars in damage.
“Rapid job growth, low unemployment, record stock prices and strong earnings contribute to business condition confidence.”
Coincidently, on another listing we received an offer with a “Hubbard clause”. That used to be a non-starter. It means “I have to sell my…
Days on Market in New Canaan has ranged from 83 to 100 during the Obama administration, 2013 to 2016, and then from 87 to 120 during the…
We are all staying put longer.
Trust. In an era where every listing is available online, what is the role of the agent, particularly the buyer’s agent?
The development of such a large parcel captures the public’s imagination.
It is difficult to find patterns in the data this time around.
Everybody’s talking about the Revaluation. Next week The Sentinel will publish my full- page spread showing every house in town and its…
If inflation next year slows to 2.5 percent, the negative impact on consumer sentiment from inflation would decline by another 50 percent…
“The real estate market’s fate hinges not just on economic trends but on the relentless march of demographics – Millennials are reshaping…
Days on Market in New Canaan has ranged from 83 to 100 during the Obama administration, 2013 to 2016, and then from 87 to 120 during the…
Is it possible that 1.5 million agents nationwide are “winging” it, showing houses based on experience and instinct, and in this case not…
The $3 million market is a very active price point in New Canaan right now One of our clients closed on the purchase of a $3.5 million home…
Bidding wars are at an all-time high throughout the New York metro area, but as you can see inthe chart Fairfield County’s level of 61.7%…
How do we differentiate between moderately strong and strong in the town by town analysis on page 14 at left? Mostly we looked at price…
Price per square foot is a common metric used in real estate to measure and compare the value or cost of properties. It represents the…
Darien is strong and strengthening with values rising by 4.5%. The year-to-date numbers show roughly 20% fewer listings and sales than last…
Condo Report Eight condominiums have sold in the last 30 days; another six condominium sales are currently pending. This has been a strong…
What is the state of the real estate market in New Canaan, Connecticut? We are still in a seller’s market moving toward a more balanced…
Inventory: According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) listing inventory remains historically low and August is supposed to be…
by John Engel New Canaan Values Since the Last Valuation have Gone up 35% Connecticut requires every town to conduct a town wide property…
by John Engel The Glass House Welcomes a New Chapter with Kirsten Reoch Philip Johnson’s Glass House has stood as a testament to…
How is the market in 2023? by John Engel Sept 8, 2023 New Canaan Inventory By Property Type, 2014-2023 The standout story for 2023…
Timing the Market and Rent vs Buy Analysis by John Engel Sept. 1 2023 Prices are up in New Canaan and throughout Fairfield County. Interest…
August 25, 2023 John Engel, Real Estate Page Editor The first question I have for you is, “Why do we need another newspaper in New Canaan?”…
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