Dayton Realtors said frigid temperatures and snow kept consumers indoors and away from home shopping, contributing to the sluggish pace of January sales.
“We saw a lot of our agencies here, (potential) buyers, just saying ‘We don’t want to look. It’s too cold. We’ll just wait until it warms up,” said Pat Corle, president of Dayton Realtors and a realtor for 31 years.
Prospective buyers also aren’t pulling the trigger on a new home in early 2025 because they also are hoping that interest rates will drop, Corle said.
The amount of homes sold this year likely will increase because interest rates are likely to dip, which will encourage home buyers to move forward with, she said.
Entries of single-family homes and condominiums during the first month of 2025 decreased 5% compared to last year, with 1,082 new listings added in January, according to Dayton Realtors. The total available active inventory stood at 1,745 at month’s end, putting the pace of sales at 2.3 months.
A normal market inventory supply of homes is approximately three months.
“The Inventory out there is not changing much, so people are still picky, and builders are waiting until you put a contract on before they’re starting to break ground, which slows things down, but for the most part, I think we’re going to have a good year,” Corle said. “I think (inventory is) going to improve a little bit. It’s getting some movement now, with some of the builders knowing that we need some what I call ‘normal-price-ranged houses,’ not the $500,000 homes.
“There’s a few new developments popping up here and there, which is very encouraging.”
New listings in January trended downward by 5.6% over the same time last year, reflecting a decrease of 64 homes, a total of 1,082 versus 1,146 for last January’s housing numbers, according to Dayton Realtors said.
January is typically a month that sees lower sales numbers compared to the rest of the year, including the months that surround it. said
Austin Castro, a team leader at Coldwell Banker, said that despite the sales slowdown experienced in January and December, he remains “pretty confident” of a home sales rebound this winter.
“I think the market’s a little more .. settled,” Castro said. “It was moving a little bit away from a heavy seller’s market ... but it seems like it’s settling into a new norm, and buyers are understanding that, sellers are understanding that, and when buyers and sellers are on the same page, that’s when you see activity and transactions pick up.”
January saw residential sales prices increases. Average sales price totaled $269,640, up 4.7% compared to January 2024. The median price also increased, rising to $231,000, up 10% compared to a year ago.
“Growth is still there,” Castro said. “It’s not the it’s not the year-over-year crazy growth we saw in 2022 and so forth, but the market’s still steady. There’s not going to be this big fallout in price that I think maybe some buyers are hoping for, and sellers, as long as you’re positioned well, you can still get top dollar. You need to be priced right and in proper condition and you can still get top dollar in this market.”
Ohio home sales in January reached 7,428, a 0.8% increase from the 7,367 recorded during January 2024. The average sales price across Ohio in January reached $274,522, a 7.6% increase from the $255,052 mark posted in January 2024.
“Ohio’s housing market is showing strong momentum to start the year, with increased sales and rising home values reflecting continued confidence in our state’s real estate sector,” Ohio Realtors President Michelle Billings said in a statement. “The 0.8% uptick in sales and a 7.6% rise in average prices demonstrate a resilient market that remains attractive to buyers and sellers alike.”
Thirteen of the 14 Ohio markets that are tracked experienced an increase in average sale price for this January compared to January 2023, Ohio Realtors said.
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