Realtors rally to address Connecticut's housing shortage

Realtors from across the country gathered in Hartford on Monday to address challenges, the biggest being the housing shortage.

The event was hosted by the Connecticut Association of Realtors.

The lack of available housing makes this a tough market.

Even with higher interest rates houses are selling fast and buyers are getting what they want and more.

Connecticut also has more people looking for homes.

In 2020 during the pandemic, 55,000 people moved to Connecticut.

Governor Ned Lamont was the guest speaker at the event. He said housing is a priority.

“We have a shortage of houses now, but remember five or 10 years ago we had too few people looking at too many houses that sat on the market for a long time. Now we have reached housing construction," Lamont said.

Lamont and lawmakers are looking at more incentives for cities and towns to build more housing and tax breaks for homeowners.

Eyewitness News spoke with Kyle and Faith Hayes in February. They just found a home, but it took months of searching.

"It's a seller's market, so what we could afford in the past, we couldn't afford to get in and the inventory was very low," said Kyle Hayes.

They were able to take advantage of a new program for first-time home buyers, which allows them to ease their loans by 10 percent each year they are in the home for up to 10 years.

But this does not address the underlying problem which is a lack of housing.

"Right now we have about 3,100 single family and condominium properties in the entire state of Connecticut. To put that in perspective pre-pandemic there were 22,000," said David Galito, president of CT Realtors.

"I'm trying to do something where some of the older people want to downsize but stay in Connecticut," Lamont said.

Lamont intends to give homeowners a capital gains tax break. He also wants to give cities and towns more incentives to build more housing.

"Come up with your plan, I want it to be your plan, but if you don't come up with a plan there are ways developers can move things," Lamont said.

Some cities and towns have been reluctant to build apartments and condominiums, but there is now a housing boom in New London, mainly due to the addition of electrical jobs and the construction of a wind energy facility.

But there is no doubt, the rest of the country needs more housing.