Fairfield County Market Report: Q3 2026. Are Home Prices Still Rising in Fairfield County?

If you own a home in one of the nine Fairfield County towns I cover, the number you will see quoted this month says it is worth about the same as what it was worth a year ago. Across Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Westport, Wilton, Ridgefield, Fairfield, Stamford and Norwalk, a total of 985 single-family homes closed between July 1 and September 30 at a median sale price of $1,390,000, compared to $1,354,500 in the same three months of 2025, an increase of just 2.6%. Compared like with like, house against similar house, a comparable home sold for about 8% more than it did last summer, and about 18% more than it did two summers ago.

That gap between the headline and the house is the story of this quarter, and it ran the other way a year ago. Last summer the median jumped 14.5% while the like-for-like gain was closer to 10%. This summer the median added 2.6% while the like-for-like gain was about 8%. Put the two summers together and the noise cancels: the median is up 17.5% over two years, and the same-house comparison is up 18.5%. The quarter itself was a large one. Buyers paid a total of $1.86 billion for single-family homes across the nine towns, the most of any quarter in the nine quarters of sales behind this report, 66% of homes sold over their asking price compared to 59% a year ago, and the median home took 20 days on market to sell compared to 15.

Here is the quarter at a glance, compared to the same three months of 2025 and of 2024. Every figure covers single-family homes in the nine towns unless it says otherwise. Greenwich figures exclude Greenwich MLS listings, so Greenwich activity is likely understated. SmartMLS data pulled October 11, 2026.

Closed sales: 985, compared to 994 in Q3 2025 and 974 in Q3 2024.

Median sale price: $1,390,000, compared to $1,354,500 a year ago (+2.6%) and $1,182,500 two years ago (+17.5%).

Like-for-like price change, the same kind of house compared to a year earlier: about +7.9%, compared to +9.8% a year ago.

Median price per square foot: $490, compared to $456 a year ago (+7.5%) and $415 two years ago.

Median home size: 2,898 square feet, compared to 2,976 square feet a year ago.

Median days on market: 20 days on market, compared to 15 in each of the two prior summers.

Sold over asking: 66% of sales, compared to 59% in each of the two prior summers.

Median sale-to-list price ratio: 103.7%, compared to 101.6% a year ago.

Under contract within 10 days on market: 20% of sales, compared to 36% a year ago and 39% two years ago.

Dollar volume: $1.86 billion, compared to $1.79 billion a year ago (+4.0%).

Condominiums and co-ops: 334 sales at a median of $525,000, compared to 362 at $500,500 a year ago.

For sale as of October 11: 569 single-family homes, with another 358 under contract.

The Same House, About 8% More Than Last Summer

The median sale price is the price where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less, so it moves with whatever happens to sell. This summer, what sold was different from last summer. Greenwich, the highest-priced of the nine towns per square foot, made up 6.2% of sales compared to 8.2% a year ago, when it had its busiest quarter in the nine quarters behind this report. Norwalk, Fairfield and Ridgefield, all of which sit below the nine-town median, each took a larger share of sales. The median home sold was smaller, at 2,898 square feet compared to 2,976 last year. Each of those shifts pulls the median down without a single house being worth less, and last summer the mix ran the other way and flattered the headline.

To get past that, I compared like with like. I used all 7,201 single-family sales across the nine towns over the past nine quarters to measure what each feature of a house is worth (town, square footage, lot size, age, bedrooms, bathrooms and style), then compared prices from one summer to the next with those features held constant. On that basis, the price of the same kind of house rose about 8% between last summer and this one, and about 18% over two years (the ranges around those figures are in the methodology note at the end). Price per square foot, the simpler version of the same idea, tells the same story: it rose in all nine towns, from 3.6% in Greenwich to 13.1% in Darien, and 7.5% across the nine towns as a whole. The past twelve months agree as well, with the median sale price from October 2025 through September 2026 up 9.8% compared to the twelve months before.

What stands out is how steady the like-for-like figure has been. Quarter by quarter, the same-house gain over the prior year has run 9.8%, 6.7%, 6.7%, 9.5% and now 7.9%, five straight quarters inside a band of roughly 7% to 10%, while the median's year-over-year change swung from 14.5% to 2.6% over the same stretch. September's headline median was down 2.0% compared to a year earlier, yet September's like-for-like gain, about 9%, was the largest of the three summer months. As I wrote in the September report, that dip did not necessarily mean your home would sell for less. The quarter's numbers bear that out.

In dollars, a home that sold at last summer's median of $1,354,500 would, on that like-for-like basis, have sold for roughly $1,460,000 this summer, and a home that sold at the Q3 2024 median of $1,182,500 would go today for roughly $1,400,000. If you have been waiting for prices to flatten out before you buy, the past year did not deliver that, whatever the headline said. If you are selling, comparable sales from last summer are roughly 8% stale before any adjustment for condition, and a headline that says prices barely moved is most likely not the number to anchor to.

One limit worth stating: this comparison cannot see condition or renovation quality. If more renovated homes sold this summer than last, part of that 8% is quality rather than appreciation. Excluding new construction changes the figure by less than half a point, and every other version of the comparison I ran landed between 7.6% and 8.2%, so the direction is not in doubt even if the second decimal is.

The New $1 Million

Two years of gains like that move every price line a buyer or seller carries in their head. The share of single-family sales under $1,000,000 fell from 39.7% in Q3 2024 to 33.0% last summer and 31.8% this summer, while sales at $3,000,000 and above went from 105 to 133 to 155 and now account for 38.1% of the dollars spent, compared to 30.5% two years ago. Read quickly, that looks like a starter market disappearing and a luxury boom arriving at the same time.

Adjust the price lines for the like-for-like gain and most of that disappears. Scale 2024's $1,000,000 by the 18.5% two-year gain and you get about $1,185,000. This summer, 40.4% of sales closed under $1,185,000, almost exactly the 39.7% that closed under $1,000,000 two summers ago. The same holds at the top: above $3,555,000, which is 2024's $3,000,000 in today's dollars, there were 108 sales this summer compared to 105 in Q3 2024. The shape of the market barely changed in two years, but the price tags did. In practical terms, $1,185,000 buys what $1,000,000 bought in the summer of 2024, and a buyer who set a $1,000,000 ceiling in 2024 and never moved it is now shopping what was roughly an $845,000 house then.

What did change is how hard buyers compete for the same tier of house. Take the homes that would have been $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 in 2024, which is $1,185,000 to $1,778,000 today. Two summers ago, 63% of them sold over asking at a median sale-to-list price ratio of 102.9%, meaning $100 of asking price became $102.90 at closing. Last summer it was 65% and 104.2%. This summer it was 76% and 106.3%, and the share that closed at a discount of 3% or more fell from 16% to just 10%. The tier above it tells the same story. Same houses, more competition.

In today's dollars, the most contested price range in the nine towns is $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. A total of 215 homes sold in that range this summer, 81% of them over asking compared to 66% a year ago, at a median sale-to-list price ratio of 107.3%, and 58% closed at 105% of asking or more. No other price range came close: the next highest, $1,500,000 to $2,000,000, saw 69% of sales go over asking. By town, Wilton led at 89% over asking (28 sales), followed by Fairfield at 85% (46 sales).

My read is that this range is where the buyer who set a seven-figure ceiling two years ago meets the move-up buyer selling a first house, and both groups are bidding on the same homes. If that is your range, it pays to have your financing, your inspection approach and your ceiling settled before the first showing, because the median deal there closed 7% over the asking price; the current single-family listings between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 across the nine towns are the ones to watch. If you are selling a home priced near a round number, which side of that number you list on changes who sees it, and the bidding is deepest from $1,000,000 to about $3,500,000.

Longer on Market, Higher at Closing

The September report noted that homes took longer to get under contract, and the quarter confirms it. The median home took 20 days on market to sell compared to 15 a year ago, and only 20% of sales went under contract within 10 days on market compared to 36% last summer and 39% two summers ago. On its own, that reads like a market cooling off, and it has cooled, though only slightly. The rest of the table shows how slightly.

The homes that did not draw competition were barely slower. Sales at or below asking took a median of 37 days on market compared to 33 a year ago, and the share of homes that took more than 60 days on market to sell was 11.4% compared to 11.1%. The slowdown is concentrated in the homes that won bidding. Sales that closed over asking took a median of 15 days on market this summer compared to 9 last summer, and that over-asking timeline had been identical in the summers of 2024 and 2025, so this is new in 2026.

Price outcomes improved at every stage of time on market. Homes that sold after 15 to 21 days on market closed at a median of 105.3% of asking compared to 101.0% a year ago, with 75% selling over asking compared to 57%. Even at 31 to 45 days on market, 49% still sold over asking compared to 25% last summer. The median sale dips below asking only among homes that took more than 60 days on market to sell.

The change arrived suddenly. Among homes that sold over asking, the share that was under contract within 5 days on market ran between 17.5% and 35.8% in every month of 2025 and was 22.3% for January 2026 closings. For February closings it fell to 8.6%, and it has stayed between 5.1% and 11.0% in every month since. Condos show the same break from March, and it appears in every town except Darien. It is strongest under $2,000,000. My read is that this is the market evolving. Prices set record highs over the past few years, and the pace has cooled slightly from the peaks of the Covid years, but demand is still very strong and this is still very much a seller's market. Buyers are taking a little more time, and the homes worth competing for still draw the competition.

What this means in practice runs against the instinct on both sides. A listing that is two or three weeks old is not stale. Homes at 15 to 21 days on market still closed at a median of 105% of asking this summer, so as a buyer you most likely have time for a second visit and a clear plan, and the discount conversation realistically starts after about a month on market. As a seller, no offer by day 10 is no longer a verdict. In September I wrote that the first two weeks carry the most leverage; this summer that window stretched to about three weeks. Plan for a three-week launch rather than a one-weekend one, and resist an early price reduction: half of the homes that sold after 31 to 45 days on market this summer still sold over asking.

Two Markets in Today's Inventory

As of October 11, there were 569 single-family homes for sale across the nine towns and another 358 under contract (238 under contract and 120 under contract but still being shown). At the summer's closing pace of about 328 sales a month, that is 1.7 months of supply; at September's slower pace it is 2.5 months, the figure in last week's report. A third of those 569 homes, 202 of them, have been listed for more than 60 days, and the median asking price of what is for sale is $1,799,000 compared to a median sale price this summer of $1,390,000. The count is inflated by homes at the top of the market and homes that have been sitting, while 71% of this summer's sales were listed under $2,000,000.

Split the inventory by price and two very different markets appear. Under $2,000,000 there were 321 homes for sale compared to 698 sales listed in that range over the summer, about 1.4 months of supply, and counting only the homes listed within the past 60 days it is about one month. Between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 it is 1.2 months (80 homes for sale), and between $750,000 and $1,000,000 more homes are under contract (87) than are for sale (85). In Darien, New Canaan and Westport together there were just 27 single-family homes for sale under $2,000,000 compared to 86 such sales over the summer, less than a month of supply, and Darien alone had 7 listings compared to 24 sales. For the buyer under $2,000,000 this is a seller's market heading into the months when new listings usually thin out, and the entry-level house in the most expensive towns is close to gone. My read is that many of those buyers end up looking next at Wilton, Ridgefield and Fairfield, where supply under $2,000,000 runs 1.0 to 1.7 months, which is part of why the $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 range in those towns is as competitive as it is.

Above $3,000,000 the picture inverts. There were 165 homes for sale at $3,000,000 and above compared to 133 sales listed in that range over the summer, about 3.7 months of supply, and at $5,000,000 and above there were 88 homes for sale compared to 37 sales, about 7.1 months. Over half of the $3,000,000-plus listings (53%) have been on the market for more than 60 days, with a median of 69 days on market so far. That reads like a soft top end until you look at what actually sold. Among the 155 homes that closed at $3,000,000 or more this summer, 51% sold over asking compared to 42% a year ago, and the share that closed at a discount of 3% or more was cut in half, from 31% to 17%. The median sale closed right at asking after 18 days on market. The homes that sell at the top do so in weeks and near their asking price, and the deep supply is the homes priced where the market has not yet arrived.

If you are buying above $3,000,000, you have real choice and real leverage on the listings that have sat, while the fresh, well-priced ones still go near or above asking within weeks. If you are selling at that level, the market is paying full price for the right number in the first month, and the alternative is joining the 60-day pile. That is the price point where pricing judgment earns its keep.

Town by Town

All nine towns cleared 20 sales for the quarter, so these medians are a fair read of each town, though a town's median still moves with the mix of what sold there. The like-for-like column is the same-house comparison at the town level; the ranges around those figures are wide, so treat them as direction rather than precise values. Months of supply uses the October 11 count of homes for sale over the summer's monthly sales pace.

Darien broke from the pack. The median sale price was $2,937,500 across 80 sales compared to $2,383,455 a year ago, up 23.2%, and price per square foot rose 13.1% to $786. Part of that is mix, but less than you might expect: like for like, Darien prices rose about 14.7%, the most of the nine towns, and the median over the past twelve months is up 20.5% on 214 sales. Darien also has the thinnest supply of the nine, 26 homes for sale compared to 80 sales over the summer, about one month, and it was the one town where the fastest sales did not slow down. Darien accounted for five of the quarter's eight largest single-family sales in SmartMLS.

Wilton was the most competitive town of the nine this summer, with 83% of sales closing over asking compared to 61% a year ago, at a median sale-to-list price ratio of 106.0%. Its median was flat only because the homes that sold were smaller (3,262 square feet compared to 3,782); like for like, Wilton rose about 8%. Stamford's median was flat for the same reason (2,551 square feet compared to 2,892) while its price per square foot rose 10.7% and its like-for-like gain was about 6.8%, and it was the busiest town, with 178 sales. Ridgefield's median jumped 21.6%, of which like-for-like appreciation accounts for roughly half (about 11.1%), and it was the slowest town to go under contract, at a median of 28 days on market compared to 10 last summer, while still selling over asking 65% of the time. Norwalk's $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 homes closed at a median of 112.8% of asking, the highest of any town with 20 or more sales in that range. In Westport, 46 of the 69 listings are priced at $3,000,000 or more, while under $2,000,000 there were just 12 homes for sale compared to 36 sales over the summer.

Greenwich was faster and more competitive than a year ago, at a median of 17 days on market compared to 29, with 57% of sales over asking compared to 43%, and it has the most supply of the nine relative to sales (3.1 months, with 34 of its 63 listings at $3,000,000 or more). Its 61 sales compared to 82 a year ago may partly reflect coverage rather than activity: Greenwich figures exclude Greenwich MLS listings, so Greenwich activity is likely understated, and that caveat applies to every Greenwich figure in this report.

Condominiums and co-ops moved more slowly than houses. A total of 334 condos and co-ops closed across the nine towns this summer compared to 362 a year ago, at a median of $525,000 compared to $500,500, and the median condo took 25 days on market to sell compared to 17. Like for like, condo prices rose about 4.2% over the past year and about 10.1% over two years, compared to roughly 8% and 18.5% for single-family homes, and the gap between the median house and the median condo widened from $707,500 two summers ago to $865,000 this summer. Stamford, with 138 of the 334 sales, had 118 condos for sale as of October 11, about 2.6 months of supply, the most of any sizable segment in the nine towns. If you own a condo and plan to trade into a house, each year of waiting has widened the gap to the house you want, which is an argument for making that move sooner rather than later.

If You Are Deciding This Fall or Next Spring

None of this is a forecast. The like-for-like gain has sat between roughly 7% and 10% a year for five straight quarters, which tells you what has happened and nothing about what will, and the honest way to use it is as a set of conditions.

If that pattern holds through the Spring, a seller pricing off last summer's comparable sales will be roughly 8% low before the first showing, and the gap widens the longer the comps age. The free home valuation on my site gives you a current starting point, and I'm happy to go through which recent sales it should be weighed against. If the pattern holds and you are a buyer who has been waiting for the headline median to confirm a flat market, that confirmation would be a reading of the mix, since the median will keep swinging with whatever happens to sell. If instead the like-for-like gain fades, the first place it should show up is the sale-to-list price ratio at 15 to 30 days on market, the measure that improved most this year, and that is the line I will be watching in the Q4 figures.

Seasonally, new listings usually thin out through the winter, so under $2,000,000 the roughly one month of fresh supply is unlikely to grow before the Spring. Above $3,000,000 the question runs the other way, since more than half of what is for sale today has already been on the market for more than 60 days, and a new listing at that level is competing with that pile as well as with other new listings, so the number it launches at matters more than the month.

So the question to ask this Fall is which number you are using. The median tells you what happened to sell last quarter. The price of the house most like yours, compared to what it sold for a year ago, tells you what your home or your budget is worth today, and over the past two years those two numbers have pointed in different directions for whole seasons at a time. If you are making a decision in the next six months, it is worth knowing which one you are looking at.

A note on methodology: figures come from SmartMLS records for the nine towns named at the top, pulled October 11, 2026, and cover single-family homes closed July 1 through September 30 unless stated otherwise, compared to the same three months of 2025 and 2024. Condominium figures combine condominiums and co-ops. Over asking compares the closing price to the final listing price. Homes for sale and under contract are counted as of October 11, 2026; under contract includes listings marked under contract, continue to show, and coming-soon listings are not counted. Months of supply divides the homes for sale by the summer's average monthly closings unless another pace is named. The like-for-like figures come from a statistical comparison of all 7,201 single-family sales across the nine towns over the past nine quarters that holds town, square footage, the share of square footage below grade, lot size, age, bedrooms, bathrooms and style constant; the 95% range around the one-year figure of 7.9% is 5.4% to 10.5%, and around the two-year figure of 18.5% it is 15.7% to 21.3%. That comparison cannot see condition or renovation quality. Greenwich MLS listing activity is not included in these figures, which draw exclusively from SmartMLS, so Greenwich figures may be incomplete. These numbers describe the market as a whole and are not a valuation of any individual home.