October home sales bested last year's levels, and sale prices continued to rise across Northeast Ohio as buyers sparred over a relatively meager pool of properties.
Across 18 counties, sales of new and previously owned homes were up 7.3 percent in October, when compared with a year before. That's a difference of roughly 290 houses and condominiums, based on fresh figures from the Northern Ohio Regional Multiple Listing Service.
And sales barely declined from September to October, at a time when the pace of home purchasing typically slows. Prices, meanwhile, increased slightly from one month to the next and jumped sharply from a year before.
The listing service reported that the average sale price for a house in the region was $162,790 last month, up 7.3 percent from October 2016. The average sale price for a condo was $141,100, for a 7.2 percent annual gain.
The Redfin real estate brokerage calculated that inventory — the number of homes on the market — in the Cleveland area was down by 12.2 percent in October, when compared with a year before.
At the current buying pace, it would take 3.7 months to gobble up all of the homes listed for sale. Economists often describe a six-month supply of listings to be a balanced market, one in which neither buyers nor sellers have the upper hand.
"There's no doubt 2017 has been a year for sellers and speed in Cleveland real estate," the company wrote in an October market update.
Redfin found that 18.6 percent of local homes sold above listing price last month. The median — or mid-length — listing period for properties contracted by a week from October 2016.
Among counties with more than 100 sales last month, Portage County experienced the sharpest gain. Sales were up 16.8 percent from a year before. Summit County posted an annual gain of 13.7 percent. Sales rose 12 percent in Lorain County and 7.5 percent in Cuyahoga County, according to the listing service.
A bit of context: Buyers purchased almost 1,300 houses and condos in Cuyahoga last month, almost twice as many as in the next-busiest county, Summit.
Cuyahoga's average sale price was up by 11.8 percent, to $172,237, from a year before. Summit posted a 9.9 percent annual price gain. Only four of 18 counties — Coshocton, Portage, Carroll and Geauga — saw year-over-year declines.
Based on 10 months' worth of data, 2017 sales are topping last year's levels by 1.1 percent. House prices are up 5.7 percent, on average. The average sale price for a condo is 5 percent higher than it was during the first 10 months of 2016.
