Statewide home sales rose during August, despite a nationwide pullback in purchases of previously owned properties.
The Ohio Association of Realtors said Wednesday that the pace of home sales was up 2.7% last month, when compared with July. And the statewide sales rate was 4.2% higher than in August 2016, based on seasonally adjusted annualized figures.
Buyers purchased 15,454 new and previously owned homes in the Buckeye State, at an average price of $178,675. That made August the second-busiest month of the year, after June, when both sales and prices peaked.
The Ohio Realtors said that August's sales rate was a record-breaking figure for the month, topping a benchmark achieved in 2005. In a blog post on the trade group's website, OAR President Pete Kopf expressed hope that more homeowners will list their properties for sale, offsetting long-running inventory shortages.
The National Association of Realtors pointed to a lack of listings as a major factor behind relatively lackluster activity across the country. Though sales rose during August in the Midwest and Northeast, softening in the South and the west offset those gains.
The national numbers, released Wednesday, aren't directly comparable to the state figures. Ohio lumps together newly constructed and previously owned homes, while the national Realtors focus only on existing homes. A separate report on nationwide sales of new homes will be released next week.
U.S. sales dipped 1.7% from July to August. And they barely bested last year's levels, rising just 0.2% from August 2016.
"Sales have been unable to break out because there simply are not enough homes for sale," Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the national Realtors, said in a news release.
The national median — or middle — sale price for an existing home was $253,500 in August, up 5.6% from a year before. Ohio real estate groups report average prices instead of medians. The state's average sale price posted a 6.2% gain, when compared with August 2016.
