Connecticut home prices down but sales up
The number of Connecticut single-family home sales increased the first quarter, while median prices dropped to their lowest level since 2003, according to data by Boston-based real estate analysts, the Warren Group.
Sales of single-family homes rose more than 5 percent to 4,157 in the first quarter of this year, up from 3,950 the previous quarter. Sales in March increased 4.5 percent to 1,610, up from 1,540 in the same month last year.
But the median sales price for single-family homes in the first quarter was $215,000, a decrease of 6.5 percent from $230,000 in the same period last year. That is the lowest median sales price recorded in the state since 2003. A total of 1,134 Connecticut condos sold the first quarter, a 1.4 percent increase from 1,118 in the same period in 2011.
In March, condo sales decreased 10 percent to 430 transactions, down from 480 in March of last year. Median sales prices for condos also dropped more than 4 percent to $158,250 from $165,000 quarter-over-quarter.
New Jersey
Fort Lee redevelopment plan unveiled
Tucker Development, an Illinois-based firm, has revealed plans for a $1 billion redevelopment project near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee. The developer is seeking approvals for Hudson Lights, which would include a 175-room hotel, 477 residential units, approximately 165,000 square feet of retail and parking for about 1,175 cars.
In March, the Fort Lee planning board approved plans for the eastern half of the project, which includes a museum, two 47-story residential towers — the tallest buildings in Bergen County — in addition to a movie theater, a restaurant and a park.
Fort Lee Redevelopment Associates is developing the eastern half. All together, the projects — Fort Lee’s largest redevelopment project to date — would add more than 187,000 square feet of commercial space as well as 1,379 residential units to the borough. If the Hudson Lights portion of the project is approved, the developer says that construction could begin as early as this summer.
Long Island
“Great Gatsby” mansion sells
The estate said to have inspired the mansion in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic “The Great Gatsby” has sold. Known as the Brickman Estate, the 20-acre property had been on the market since September 2010 and was listed for $39.5 million. At press time, the buyer’s identity and sales price had not yet been released to the public.
The estate, set at the tip of a peninsula, was last owned by the late John Handler who passed away in 2008. Built in the early 1850s, the stucco mansion is believed to be the last remaining 19th-century mansion on the North Shore of Long Island.
The property has 10 residential buildings and 1,600 feet of waterfront, with views of the Long Island Sound, New York City as well as Manhasset Bay. When Fitzgerald began writing “The Great Gatsby” in the 1920s, he lived in Great Neck.
