Greater Hartford’s home buying market is tight. Here are 10 towns and cities where you might have a better chance of finding a house.

Greater Hartford’s red-hot home buying market — touched off by the pandemic — is cooling this spring, with sales slowing as the number of properties coming on the market dwindles and rising interest rates are pricing out more buyers.

An analysis by The Courant of SmartMLS data provided by the Greater Hartford Association of Realtors shows that for the first four months of this year, sales of single-family houses fell in more than two-thirds of the 27 towns and cities tracked by the association, compared with the same period in 2021.

New listings — essential to providing fresh choices and options for would-be buyers — fell on the same year-over-year basis in all but three municipalities tracked by the association stretching from Suffield to Rocky Hill and Canton to Willington.

Kurt Potter, a real estate broker at RE/MAX Right Choice Real Estate in Glastonbury, said the scarcity of new listings has forced many potential sellers to the sidelines, worried they won’t be able to find a new home if they sell the one they now own.

“You have to have a back-up plan, a rental or something else, just in case you can’t find something,” Potter said. “So what that does, it further decreases the inventory because you have people who would have otherwise put their home on the market and they are not able to.”

The onset of COVID-19 gave the housing market in Greater Hartford — and throughout much of Connecticut — a jolt after more than a decade trying to dig out of the deep recession in the late 2000s.

Instead of dampening sales, the pandemic whipped them up as buyers fled from urban areas in New York and elsewhere, and residents already in Connecticut sought larger homes to accommodate working remotely.

Sale prices soared as properties coming up for sale sometimes had dozens of frenzied bidders and deals were sealed in days, if not hours. The Hartford metro area made national rankings in late 2020 and 2021 as among the hottest home sale markets in the country, once topping the list.

[ ‘Feeding frenzy:’ Greater Hartford tops new list of hottest home sale markets in the country, report shows ]

“You’re still seeing a lot of activity on the listings but not quite to the extent that we were seeing,” Joanne Breen, associate broker at ERA Hart Sargis-Breen in Newington. “Not the crazy 50 showings in two days and 25 offers coming. I think that’s settling down.”

Breen said she recently listed a house in Farmington that sold in three days that still had more than one offer.

In the first four months of this year, the median sale price — in which half the sales are above, half below — rose more than 4% to $302,500 from $289,900. The increase is far more modest than the double-digit gains of a year ago.

Breen said sale prices were still certainly increasing early in the year.

“But I think when you get to the fall and you’re looking back at the summer, I think the rate of increase is going to be dropping some,” Breen said. “Do I think prices are going down? Absolutely not. I don’t think they are going to go down anytime soon, but I do think it’s leveling off.”

Economist Donald L. Klepper-Smith said the underpinnings of the state’s housing market remain strong, unlike in the late 1980s when new houses and condominiums flooded the market, later leading to a collapse in prices.

Three decades ago, there was a string of years with as many as 27,000 housing starts in the state. In the past few years, there have been three or four thousand, Klepper-Smith said.

“We’ve seen a considerable amount of appreciation in such a short period of time, it was unrealistic to think that it is going to continue,” Klepper-Smith said.

There could still be gains but only matching job recovery, which is still “quite a ways” from the most recent employment peak in Connecticut.

“You’re going to see the housing market making some progress but the adjective that I would use would be ‘modest’ relative to what we’ve seen,” Klepper-Smith said. “Many of the strong gains are behind us.”

Inflation remains a potential stumbling block translating into higher fuel and grocery costs, leaving less income for housing. And as the Federal Reserve is poised to make aggressive moves in raising short-term interest rates, mortgage rates are likely to follow.

Klepper-Smith said he believes there is a 50-50 chance of recession in the next year, according to his latest forecast.

Potter said higher mortgage rates — up about 2 percentage points since January — are hitting first-time buyers especially hard.

Increasing borrowing costs come on top of rising list prices that are putting purchases out of reach for some entry-level buyers, Potter said.

“Their buying power has been decreased,” Potter said. “It’s definitely contributing to the number of home sales going downward.”

So, the bottom line is: the inventory of single-family houses is tight no matter where you look in Greater Hartford.

But here is a look at the top 10 towns and cities in the area with the least declines — and a few with increases — in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period in 2021. Finding a house, though, may still be a tough slog.

To make this top 10, the town or city had to have at least 25 sales in the January to April timeframe.

New listings: 53

Change from 2021: +13%

Sales: 29

Change from 2021: -17%

Median Sale Price: $233,000

Change from 2021: +7%

Population: 12,671

Median household income: $70,067

Area (square miles): 9

New listings: 107

Change from 2021: +8%

Sales: 92

Change from 2021: +30%

Median Sale Price: $210,000

Change from 2021: +10%

Population: 123,088

Median household income: $36,278

Area (square miles): 17

New listings: 184

Change from 2021: 0%

Sales: 165

Change from 2021: +9%

Median Sale Price: $224,000

Change from 2021: +15%

Population: 50,272

Median household income: $55,967

Area (square miles): 18

New listings: 101

Change from 2021: -1%

Sales: 48

Change from 2021: -28%

Median Sale Price: $535,000

Change from 2021: +22%

Population: 18,132

Median household income: $131,130

Area (square miles): 23

New listings: 49

Change from 2021: -2%

Sales: 37

Change from 2021: -21%

Median Sale Price: $370,000

Change from 2021: -1%

Population: 11,361

Median household income: $121,250

Area (square miles): 41

New listings: 72

Change from 2021: -4%

Sales: 37

Change from 2021: -36%

Median Sale Price: $336,000

Change from 2021: +14%

Population: 14,713

Median household income: $118,194

Area (square miles): 40

New listings: 50

Change from 2021: -4%

Sales: 42

Change from 2021: -4%

Median Sale Price: $255,000

Change from 2021: +5%

Population: 11,881

Median household income: $74,386

Area (square miles): 58

New listings: 101

Change from 2021: -6%

Sales: 66

Change from 2021: -16%

Median Sale Price: $238,750

Change from 2021: -4%

Population: 29,232

Median household income: $64,587

Area (square miles): 18

New listings: 79

Change from 2021: -6%

Sales: 65

Change from 2021: 0%

Median Sale Price: $270,000

Change from 2021: +12%

Population: 21,022

Median household income: $76,717

Area (square miles): 26

New listings: 109

Change from 2021: -7%

Sales: 90

Change from 2021: +1%

Median Sale Price: $290,000

Change from 2021: +14%

Population: 28,859

Median household income: $92,199

Area (square miles): 30

SOURCES: Greater Hartford Association of Realtors, SmartMLS, AdvanceCT, CTData Collaborative