Toledo-area home sales fall 4.3% in March

Homes sales in metro Toledo, Ohio, dropped 4.3% in March even as area home prices continued to rise, according to new figures from the Toledo Regional Association of Realtors.

There were 491 home sales that closed last month compared to 513 in March, 2017. Additionally, the stubborn nationwide problem of dropping inventory continued to plague the Toledo area market, with local inventory levels dropping 20 percent in March from a year ago.

As a result, last month houses in Lucas County and northern Wood County spent an average of 104 days on the market before selling, compared to 105 days in March a year ago.

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A panoramic view of downtown Toledo Ohio's skyline from across the Maumee river at a popular restaurant area with a paver brick boardwalk and a decorative iron railing.. A beautiful blue sky with white clouds for a backdrop.

"You hate to be a broken record on some of those things but [inventory] keeps on being our biggest challenge," said Doug Kwiatkowski, board of Realtors president.

"The 20% decrease, that's a huge number. That means we lost one out of five houses from last year's inventory," he said.

Still, whether decreasing inventory is a problem "all depends on which side of the fence you're on," Kwiatkowski, an associate with Remax Preferred brokerage, said.

The median price of homes rose 4.7% in March to $120,000 from $114,600. And the average sales price rose 10.4% to $145,545 from $131,876, according to the Realtors group.

"Seeing a 10% increase in prices is good for sellers. The inventory numbers are not good if you're looking to buy," Kwiatkowski said.

Buyer demand continues to show room for growth, but the metro Toledo market still has not reached a point where a year-over-year increase in the number of homes for sale can be anticipated, according to a report by the Realtors group.

For the 12-month period from April, 2017, through March, 2018, pending sales in northwest Ohio were up just 2.7% overall. The price range with the largest gain in sales was the $200,001 to $300,000 market, which increased 8.8%.

Kwiatkowski said he senses that many prospective sellers may be sitting tight because they recognize area homes are selling fast and they want to hold off until closer to the end of the school year.

"I think people are waiting a little bit because they know their house could sell fast. They want to get the house on the market in April, sell it in May, and move out in June," the Realtors group president said.

"I think this means we will see home sales increase this month and next month. But the trends are certainly not looking any different, so I don't see any changes in inventory levels," Kwiatkowski said.

"I was at our [Ohio Association of Realtors] convention last week, and the National Association of Realtors' economist, Lawrence Yun, spoke. He still thinks the biggest thing we can do to help inventory is to build more homes," Kwiatkowski said.

"I think our local builders would build more homes if they had the capacity to do so. But the lenders out there, the financiers, are still pretty tight with their money," he said. "They just don't have the warm fuzzies yet for our market."

Tribune Content Agency
Purchase Home prices Housing markets Real estate Ohio
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