The Engel Team at Douglas Elliman is led by John Engel, based at 199 Elm Street in the center of New Canaan, 50 steps from the train station and 2 or 3 hundred steps from the various coffee shops (Zumbachs, Starbucks, Dunkin, Dolcé, Le Pain Quotitien, Saisons Sucrées, Flour Water Salt, Rosie’s, New Canaan Diner, Walter Stewarts) where half this town’s deals get discussed before they hit the MLS. John writes a weekly real estate column for the New Canaan Sentinel, hosts the Boroughs & Burbs podcast on New York and Connecticut real estate, and has 20 years in this market. The team includes Melissa Engel, Kate Tomasic, Deke Rothfus, Charles Anello, Kisha Nembhard and Aerosmith Decastro. We live here, we work here, and our kids went through the schools that buyers move here for.
Because New Canaan is not priced by algorithm, it is priced by street. An agent working ten towns knows the comps; an agent working this town knows why the same colonial is worth $400,000 more on one side of God’s Acre than the other, which listings are coming before they list, and which of the town’s recent sales were estate sales, divorces, or off-market deals that distort the comps a Zestimate swallows whole. In a market with 40 homes for sale and 25 selling per month, the information edge is local or it is nothing.
Pricing built on street-level comps, not town averages. Preparation guidance that separates the repairs that return money from the ones that don’t. Professional photography and video, because current photography sells homes and stale photography stalls them, a subject John has covered in his column. Marketing across the MLS, our own site’s neighborhood pages, the Sentinel column’s readership, and the Boroughs & Burbs audience. Then negotiation: in a town closing at 105.6% of list, the job is not finding a buyer, it is running the competition among several so the best offer surfaces on your timeline. The Engel Team sells over 25 houses in New Canaan every year, worth over $50 million putting us in the top 3 of all agents in New Canaan.
We watch the market daily, so you see listings within hours, not at the Sunday open house after two offers are in. We know which homes have been quietly shopped, what sellers actually paid, and what the inspection will find in a 1950s New Canaan colonial before you pay for the inspection. And we run the offer strategy: with the median sale closing over ask, the winning bid is a structure, price, terms, timing, contingencies, not just a number. Buyers who come to us pre-approved and briefed win houses they would otherwise lose.
As of June 2026: median sale price $2,792,500, up 17.9% year over year. Median price per square foot $633. Sixty homes for sale, 78 sold in the month, 2.5 months of supply, and a median close at 105.6% of last list price. Translation: correctly priced homes attract multiple offers and sell over asking; overpriced homes sit in plain view of a town that notices. The full breakdown is in the New Canaan market report, updated monthly.
To the current data, not to your neighbor’s 2024 sale and not to your renovation receipts. Opinions of a home’s worth vary more widely than sellers expect, John has written a column on exactly how wide, and the market settles the argument fast: the gap between a right-priced and over-priced listing shows up in the first two weekends of showing activity. In this market, pricing at the comps is what triggers the over-ask competition. Pricing above them is what buys you a price cut in September.
Commissions are negotiable and always have been, and since the 2024 industry settlement, buyer-agent compensation is agreed in writing up front rather than assumed. We’ll walk you through exactly what our representation costs, what it includes, and how buyer-side compensation is handled in your specific deal before you sign anything. No surprises at the closing table.
Ask how many New Canaan transactions they closed in the past two years, not county-wide, here. Ask them to walk you through their last three listings: original price, final price, days on market. Ask what they would spend on preparing your specific house and what they would skip. Ask who actually shows up: the name on the sign or a junior associate. And ask them to name the last time they told a seller a hard truth about price. Any agent worth hiring has a recent answer.
The Engel Team has been selling New Canaan since 1985. Susan Engel has closed more than 500 transactions in town since 1982, has twice served as President of the New Canaan Board of Realtors, and was voted New Canaan Realtor of the Year by her peers. John Engel won New Canaan’s Realtor of the Year in 2018 and was named the town’s Citizen of the Year; he has served as Chairman of the Town Council and on the Zoning Board of Appeals, which means land use and zoning questions get answered in-house, not referred out. The team consistently ranks among New Canaan’s top producers, closing roughly 25 sales a year with a 4.9-star client rating across dozens of reviews. In a town of this size, four decades of transactions means we’ve been inside most of the houses you’ll tour before you tour them.
For sellers: a private pricing consultation at your home, no obligation, where we bring the street-level comps and an honest number. For buyers: a strategy call to define the search, set up direct listing alerts, and get you pre-approved before the right house appears. Call (203) 247-4700, email john.engel@elliman.com, or stop by 199 Elm Street. In a market moving at 105.6% of ask, the conversation costs nothing and waiting does.
© 2025 DOUGLAS ELLIMAN REAL ESTATE. ALL MATERIAL PRESENTED HEREIN IS INTENDED FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. WHILE THIS INFORMATION IS BELIEVED TO BE CORRECT, IT IS REPRESENTED SUBJECT TO ERRORS, OMISSIONS, CHANGES OR WITHDRAWAL WITHOUT NOTICE. ALL PROPERTY INFORMATION, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO SQUARE FOOTAGE, ROOM COUNT, NUMBER OF BEDROOMS AND THE SCHOOL DISTRICT IN PROPERTY LISTINGS SHOULD BE VERIFIED BY YOUR OWN ATTORNEY, ARCHITECT OR ZONING EXPERT. EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY. 
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