The cost of housing in Fairfield County has risen dramatically in the past decade, so much so that parts of the county have surpassed housing prices in over 200 neighborhoods in New York City.
A recent study from Property Shark, a national real estate research group, estimates that the costs of housing in 13 New York City suburbs, including Fairfield County, have increased by over 86% from 2016 to 2025. As of the end of 2025, there is not a single community in Fairfield County that has a median housing price of less than $300,000.
The most expensive of the towns are Greenwich, Riverside, and Old Greenwich, where the median cost of housing is $2.3 million, $2.6 million, and $2.8 million, respectively. The median cost of a house in Old Greenwich is more expensive than in 241 neighborhoods in New York City, including Central Park South, North of Madison Square Park (NoMad), and Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO). Even Bridgeport, which has the lowest median housing cost in Fairfield County at $335,000, is more expensive than 14 neighborhoods in the Bronx and Queens.
This expansion included both long-established, high-end markets — such as Scarsdale and Greenwich — as well as towns that had shifted upward throughout the last decade,” Property Shark’s assessment said. “Nowadays, moving from the city to the suburbs no longer guarantees greater affordability for New Yorkers. Rather, it often requires would-be buyers to compete at higher price tiers across a much smaller pool of attainable communities.
The population of Fairfield County has increased, largely due to people leaving New York City, the CHFA reported in its 2023 Housing Needs Assessment, and the rising cost of houses in Fairfield County coincides with increases in rent and other living expenses.
The average cost of rent across Connecticut has grown consistently over the past 10 years, according to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (CHFA). From 2015 through the end of 2024, the average rent across the state has increased by about $500.
Statewide, the cost of renting in Connecticut increased by 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to CHFA. At the same time, vacancy rates in the state have been dropping.
Meanwhile, the average asking rent rate in Fairfield County has increased by $0.75 per square foot from 2024 to 2025, according to an assessment from Cushman & Wakefield. As of the fourth quarter of 2025, the asking rate per square foot of a rental in Fairfield County is $35.23.
“Connecticut recently underwent a rental construction wave. In 2022 and 2023, the state saw over 12,000 unit construction starts, and in 2023 there were just over 11,000 units actively under construction,” the CHFA reported. “This uptick in construction led to a significant increase in units delivered to the market in 2024, with nearly 7,000 new units placed in service. As the newly delivered units continue to lease up, it’s possible we could see a rise in the stabilized vacancy rate and a continued cooling of rent growth.”
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