Some of Connecticut’s pricier home buying markets — Fairfield County, the shoreline, Litchfield County and the Farmington Valley — saw a surprising surge in purchases last year as the grip of the pandemic tightened, with little let-up seen for at least the first part of 2021.

“With New York City residents flying to the suburbs in even greater numbers, the data indicates that we’re unlikely to see a lull in the demand anytime soon,” according to a year-end report for 2020 from William Pitt-Julia B. Fee/Sotheby’s International Realty, the residential real estate brokerage.

In the report’s overview, brokerage president and chief executive Paul E. Breunich said single-family home sales “soared to record heights” throughout the summer and fall and marched on through what is typically the slow holiday season.

A strong year for sales was welcomed in Connecticut where the housing market had struggled to get traction after the recession a decade ago.

“The pipeline of contracts will potentially lead us into an enormous first quarter in closed sales,” Breunich said.

Breunich said pending sales — properties under contract that are expected to close in 45-60 days — were up by double-digit percentages in the fourth quarter compared with 2019 in Fairfield County, Litchfield County and the shoreline, which cuts across the southern portion of New Haven, Middlesex and New London counties.

The Farmington Valley was relatively flat on a year-over-year basis, Breunich said.

The brokerage’s report did not examine all of Connecticut’s housing markets, focusing on the areas where the brokerage does the majority of its business. Hartford County, for instance, was only included where it was included in the Farmington Valley. The report also examined Westchester County in New York and Berkshire County in Massachusetts.

Fairfield County led the four regions in Connecticut in single-family house sales, with a 34% year-over-year increase. The activity boosted the median sale price — where half the sales are above, half below — by 19% to $536,000 in 2020, compared with $450,000 the previous year.

Litchfield County captured the strongest price gains, rising 23% to $293,000, from $239,000 in 2019, on a 31% increase in sales.

In the Hartford area, the eight towns included in the Farmington Valley — stretching from Hartland on the west to West Hartford on the east — experienced a 20% jump in sales. The median price rose 6% to $345,000, from $327,000 compared with 2019.

Inventory — the number of properties on the market — remained tight in the Farmington Valley at the end of the year with just 389 single-family houses for sale, down 46% on a year-over-year basis.

The most homes, according to the report, were sold in Burlington, where sales rose 50% compared with 2019.

Hartland registered the largest jump in median price, gaining 16%, to $249,000 from $215,000 for the previous year. Burlington, Canton and Farmington also saw double-digit percentage gains in price in the same period.

Along the shoreline, sales of single-family houses rose 17%, and the median price gained 13%, to $359,000, compared with $318,000 in 2019.

Breunich said the demand in 2020 was largely fueled by New Yorkers seeking to flee the city amid the pandemic. Those decisions, he said, were fueled by more options to work from home; the need for more space in an era of social distancing; and a spike in crime in urban areas.

Monday’s report pointed out that New York City has 8.4 million residents with 27,000 people per square mile, while Fairfield County has 1,467 and Litchfield County 206.

Contact Kenneth R. Gosselin at kgosselin@courant.com.