Central Ohio Real Estate Market News

The 2nd quarter homes sales data is now available for our review. I confess, I thought the numbers would be better than they are. Some agents are reporting that they are busy but when quizzed, those are agents selling a fair number of REO’s or low priced homes. The more expensive homes are still selling very slowly.

The following graph is an update from one I created in May. I’ve also added more school districts for a better comparison to the northern Franklin county/southern Delaware county areas. Although many of the school districts sold substantially fewer homes than in 2008, the average price of the homes sold has not declined nearly as much. For instance, 23% fewer homes were sold in the Olentangy school district but the price that buyers paid was only 2% lower than last year. The Westerville district saw a similar disconnect with 29% fewer homes sold at an average price that was only 9% lower.

This might be a disappointment for buyers hoping to submit a low-ball offer and then have the seller accept it. The disappointment for sellers is that if they plan to hold firm with their pricing, they may have their home go unsold given the limited number of buyers.

Click to enlarge chart

The good news – for sellers – is that for the past two months, average home prices in most of these school districts has been increasing somewhat each month. The good news for buyers is that these prices are still below what they were a few years ago. The “experts” predict that the current market is a “reset” and that it will be quite some time before we return to the higher prices that we saw in 2003-2005.

Recommended reading for home buyers:

• Real Living mortgage protection plan
• 1st Time Home Buyer’s $8,000 Tax Credit

Copyright © 2009. Elaine Reese, Real Living HER. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.