Winsted Web Graphs

We are providing information about the City of Winsted/Town of Winchester real estate market in order to help you better understand both current and historical conditions. Many newspapers and media outlets feature stories about problems in the real estate market. Certainly there are changes occurring in the Connecticut market as well. Winsted/Winchester recent sales data indicate a flattening or leveling off of sales price especially for single family property. In fact, the median sales price to date for 2007 compared to the 2006 median price indicates a 3% decline in price. This recent change is in sharp contrast to the significant home price appreciation experienced throughout the market from 1999 to 2005. This is clearly shown in the charts below. We hope that by better understanding these market conditions, you will have a more complete idea of how your assessment was derived. It is very important to keep in mind that your old assessment for 2006 was derived 5 years ago in 2002. Therefore the old assessment on your notice does not account for the substantial market appreciation which occurred during this 5 year period.

The first two charts show why values increased on this revaluation. The last revaluation was completed in 2002. Since that time, you will see that single family and condo property values have steadily increased over the 5 year period between revaluations (2002-2007). With the exception of the 2006-2007 timeframe for single family properties, the charts illustrate a steady increase in market value and that values are still much higher in 2007 than they were in 2002 when the last revaluation was performed.

Note: The median sales price is the middle of the range of actual selling prices from the lowest to the highest. The median is used instead of an average because the average gives higher weight to the higher priced properties, the median gives equal weight to all sales.

This next chart is called the assessed to sales ratio chart. It is simply a depiction of the median assessment / sales price for all qualified market sales. The assessed to sale ratio is a common industry measurement that shows how the current Town assessments (Prior to Reval) measure up to the current real estate market. If the measurement is below 100%, then the assessments are below current market value. In the chart below, we analyzed the assessments to the current market prices using sales occurring 1 year prior to 10/01/2007. Sales were compared to the 2006 old assessments and to the new proposed 2007 assessments after revaluation. Since CT law requires that assessed value after a revaluation be at 70% (+ or – 10%) of sales prices, you will see that values needed to increase. Given current market conditions we chose to be at an overall assessed to sales ratio of 67%.