To be sure, sales of luxury homes in Greenwich have been falling for a while now, prompting many sellers to pull their homes from the market in the hopes that conditions might improve. But in a sign that wealthy New Yorkers looking to trade their two-bedroom UES apartments for a sprawling Fairfield County estate are being forced to scale back their budgets after their apartments didn't fetch as high a price as they had hoped, Bloomberg reported that the median home-sale price in Greenwich fell 17% during the last three months of 2018 to $1.5 million. Overall purchases continued to slip, falling 2.2% during the quarter.

Real estate brokers told BBG that the weakness in the NYC market was largely to blame.

"The weakness in New York City has definitely played a role in some of the weakness that we've felt here," said David Haffenreffer, brokerage manager of Houlihan Lawrence's Greenwich office. Sellers who got less than they wanted for their city apartments "are in turn then dialing down their budgets when they get here to look at homes. Or, it's just flat-out delaying their ability to buy here."