By John Engel
To cut through month-to-month noise, I looked at rolling 3-month data on median sales prices, supply, and closed sales.
Prices
All four towns — New Canaan, Darien, Westport, and Wilton — saw strong price increases through the first half of 2025. New Canaan and Darien both posted 28% year-over-year gains in median sale price. Wilton was up 9.3%. Westport peaked earlier and ended the period flat, giving back gains in June. (Top chart at right.)
I checked four more towns. Stamford, Fairfield, and Rowayton were all up year-over-year. Only Norwalk declined, down 6.9%, with that drop occurring entirely in the past six months.
Supply
Most towns remain undersupplied. New Canaan sits at 3.0 months of inventory, down 21% year-over-year. Darien is at 2.0 months, Wilton at 2.7. Westport is the outlier at 4.4 months, up 22%. A balanced market is 6 months. This is still a seller’s market. (Middle chart.)
Sales Volume
New Canaan had 259 sales in the last 12 months, down 5.8%. There were 120 closings in the first half, down 3.2% from the same period last year. Darien saw 239 sales over 12 months, up 10.6%, with 109 closings in the first half, up 38%. Monthly sales still range from 10 in the winter to around 40 in peak months. In June, New Canaan had 32 closings, down from 39 and 41 in the same month the prior two years. (Bottom chart.)
Dollar Volume
Total dollar volume in the first six months was up 59% in Darien, up modestly in New Canaan and Westport, and down slightly in Wilton. Higher prices are offsetting lower transaction counts.
Stock Market Comparison
The S&P 500 dropped 4.3% in Q1. In Q2, it rose 10.9%. That puts the first-half return at +6.2%. The turning point came April 2 — “Liberation Day” — when new tariffs triggered a 20% intraday decline from the February peak. The index recovered quickly, but the volatility was extreme.
In the housing data, there is no visible April inflection point. Median prices in New Canaan, Darien, and Wilton continued rising uninterrupted through Q2. Only Westport shows a reversal in June, which may be seasonal. There’s no evidence of a sharp drop in buyer confidence or pricing in April. If tariffs rattled stock investors, they didn’t affect real estate demand in Fairfield County.
Conclusion
Through June, the New Canaan market is up — on pricing, dollar volume, and relative performance. Inventory remains low, demand steady, and pricing resilient despite interest rates and macro uncertainty. If anything, the data shows housing moving independently from financial markets, with local fundamentals still in control.
Things I Heard in the Monday Meeting
“I didn’t agree to marry you.” This was a funny reflection on a weak offer to purchase within the context of a multi-bid scenario. Sometimes the listing agent replies to a weak offer and tries to bring it up. But in this case, offer 2 came in much stronger, and offer 3 came in stronger still, and the listing agent didn’t feel like she needed to go back to the original offer.
“It’s not going to be crazy.” This is a case of a seller saying too much. Why would he tell me, the buyers agent, that the other offers are not coming in strong and encourage me to limp in? We speculated that maybe he’s trying to head off buyer fatigue, but we agreed as a general rule sellers should not be coaching buyer’s agents on what to offer.
“Doesn’t know what he wants to do.” Why is he putting more money into it instead of accepting a lower offer? We debated the wisdom of putting money into a listing without a clear objective or timetable. Some improvements are aligned with a rental strategy, while others make sense if you intend to move in and enjoy it for a long time.
“Things are softening up, huh?” We tend to look for reasons when a house has been on the market awhile. The local market is not soft. Not every house sells in the first month, and sometimes it’s not a reflection of the house or the market; it just takes longer.
“The mean streets of Easton.” This is irony; there are no “mean streets” in Easton, Connecticut. I am always surprised when people talk about lack of crime as a reason for moving here, but I shouldn’t be because peace and security remain some of the main unspoken reasons people move. It was the trigger that caused my parents to move to Connecticut 45 years ago.
“Nowhere to go.” This is a recurring theme, expressed by sellers who want to downsize but don’t want to compromise. They are all convinced their own house will sell in the first month listed, so what holds them back is not interest rates but the perception that there are no good options AT ANY PRICE. While the economics of downsizing might be a factor, it is a small one. I think that many downsizers in this area are simply looking to live smaller, with less complication and maintenance, and for many, our current condo offerings are not sufficient. They want a luxury small, new house, and what they find is that its more economical for builders to build a large new house, and that’s what’s out there. If you want a small house, you buy an old one and renovate it. And the people I’m referring to don’t want to renovate.
“Still have Dad’s report cards” was in reference to the process of letting go while getting a home ready for sale. Letting go is the absolute biggest obstacle for most of us. Nobody wants dad’s report card from 1950, but we simply can’t throw it away. We also have to accept that the contents of our homes did not grow in value like our homes did. The contents of our homes are just not worth what we paid for them. Stephanie Radman of Mayflower Organizing is an expert at helping sellers with the transition, and I can’t recommend her highly enough.
John Engel is a broker on the Engel Team at Douglas Elliman, and he just got back from Los Angeles. Real estate is expensive there, but it just didn’t look like the most exclusive zip code in America. A little dirty, fading, and gardens neglected. Welcome to New Canaan, where we never miss a mowing cycle. Roadside plantings are spectacular, everywhere — a real feast for the senses. A shout-out to New Canaan’s Public Works department, the best in the business. Imagine if Beverly Hills had a Tiger…
