“What we’ve seen for 2016 is that month-over-month, our total sales have gone up, our percentage of sales has gone up and our median price range has gone up,” said Karen O’Grady, a Realtor at Coldwell Banker Heritage Realtors and president-elect of the Dayton Area Board of Realtors. “That has been consistent since the beginning of the year …and our prediction is that it will continue. The housing market is strong.”
Sales and prices have both increased in each of the past 11 months, including November when there were 1,201 Dayton area homes and condos sold, up a whopping 27 percent from November last year, according to the latest report from the DABR.
On a year-to-date basis, both the average sales price and median sales price were up about 5 percent through November to $147,380 and $126,500, respectively, compared to the comparable period a year ago. And compared to the first full year of the recession in 2008, both the average and median home prices in the Dayton-area are up more than 17 percent, reflecting a vastly improved economy and rising consumer confidence after years of widespread layoffs and foreclosures punished housing markets in Ohio and elsewhere.
“During the recession and right afterwards, we saw people coming to the table selling their house and having to bring a check to the table because they owed more on their house than they could get for it,” O’Grady said. “We were seeing a lot of that during the recession, but those days are gone.”
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Today, sellers are often collecting checks from home sales for more than they anticipated as the tight inventory of houses for sale in the Dayton area continues to drive up prices in some areas, according to Ralph Mantica of Kinzeler Realty and past president of the DABR.
The trend helped push the average sales price in the local area to $149,014 in November, and the median price to $126,900 — both figures up nearly 10 percent from November last year, according to DABR figures.
But the price increases have yet to curb the red-hot demand for houses, Mantica said: “I’m anticipating it being another good year. First-time home buyers are still getting into the market…and folks in smaller houses wanting to get into larger ones are able to sell their house quickly because of the demand. I don’t see anything in my crystal ball that tells me that’s not going to continue to happen.”
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Locally, home sales and prices have continued to climb despite rising mortgage interest rates, which have spiked in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s promise to keep raising its benchmark interest rate in 2017.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage surged to 4.3 percent in the week ended Dec. 22, the highest since April 2014, according to Freddie Mac figures.
Still, nationwide, year-over-year sales of previously owned homes in November were up 15 percent to their highest level since 2007 as home buyers rushed to lock in mortgage rates ahead of the anticipated jump in borrowing costs, according to the National Association of Realtors.
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Rates are likely to continue to be a catalyst for home sales in the local market as long as they don’t rise too fast, Mantica said.
“I don’t think interest rates are going to skyrocket,” he said. “I think they’re going to level out somewhere in the 3.5-5 percent range, but people are taking that into consideration” when they are shopping for homes.
The Dayton area housing market has been on a hot-streak all year, with sales and prices climbing in each of the past 11 months. For the year-to-date:
* The number of existing homes sold in the Dayton area rose 10.08 percent to 14,861
* The total sales price of all homes sold was $2.2 billion, up 16.09 percent from last year
* The median sales price rose 5.42 percent to $126,500
* The average sales price climbed 4.79 percent to $147,380
* Total listings fell 6.5 percent to 19,925
Source: Dayton Area Board of Realtors
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