“Certainly it’s the most I’ve ever seen since I’ve been auditor (and) maybe the most ever,” said Keith, who started in the role in 2000. “(It’s) 29% more than last year (and) four times more sales than 2011.”
Keith said his office expects that the county will top 12,000 home sales for 2021, as it typically is seeing 100 or more homes sold a day. Home sales can include apartments and condos.
“When people say the real estate market in this area is hot, don’t doubt it,” he said.
Some homes sell for “prices you could not even have imagined” two years ago, he said. He cited several examples during Thursday’s event, including a Miamisburg home that sold for $93,000 in 2011 and then for $151,000 in 2021, a Germantown home that went for $85,000 in 2001 and then $200,000 in 2021 and a Dayton home that sold for $48,060 in 2020 but $70,000 in 2021.
Keith said a Belmont home sold several years ago for somewhere between $32,000 and $35,000, then again earlier this year for $51,000. The new owner then renovated the home and then sold it last month for $177,000.
Data obtained from Dayton Realtors paint a similar picture. This year’s 7,820 homes sold by members of Dayton Realtors by the end of November falls only slightly short of the amount sold by the end of November in 2017 through 2020, based on the amount entered and sold on that entity’s multiple listing service.
The average sales price of a home continued to climb for the eighth consecutive year, rising to $190,495 by the end of November, up from $170,317 by the end of November 2020, according to Dayton Realtors.
“Prices have gone up and that continues to be because of low interest rates, which we’re still hanging on to, and also the inventory a lot tighter than it had been in the past,” said Sharon Geier, president of the Dayton Realtors and realtor with real estate firm Irongate Inc. Realtors. “Demand is a little stronger and that’s creating that uptick in the pricing.”
Home sales are expected to stay strong for the foreseeable future, she said.
“It’s had its seasonal slowdown but not at all like it has been in the past,” Geier said. “We’re still in a strong market and looking forward to a good 2022.”
Also in 2021, property transfers shot up, going from 21,244 for all of 2020 to 29,218 through the end of last month, according to the auditor’s office.
Real estate construction also flourished this year. Montgomery County saw $255.5 million in new construction in 2021, with $120.9 million in new residential construction and $132.6 million in new commercial construction. That includes new housing complexes like Gateway Lofts ($25.2 million) and Allure Apartments ($10.4 million), both in Centerville. It also includes new business construction such as Kroger Marketplace in Moraine ($5.1 million) and the second Crocs distribution center ($15.8 mllion) in Vandalia.
Montgomery County has recovered the value it lost during the Great Recession, Keith said. The total value of properties in Montgomery County is nearly $30 billion, the county’s highest total value ever. The county gained more than $3.5 million in value during its 2020 property revaluation, largely due to a 15.5% rise in residential property values.
Also during Thursday’s update event, Keith discussed pending legislation that would impact property owners.
House Bill 126, which would limit who can file property tax valuation complaints, passed the Senate by a 24-7 vote on Wednesday. Substitute House Bill 126 says only property owners would be able to appeal their valuations. School districts, which rely on property taxes for much of their funding, largely opposed the bill. If it becomes law, they would have to pass individual resolutions to contest a valuation complaint.
The bill was amended and voted on by committee “without any time for interested parties to review and give feedback,” he said.
As a result, Keith said his office opposed the measure.
“We felt like the school districts and other entities should have that opportunity to file an appeal,” he said. “Not filing that appeal, there’s some unintended consequences, we believe, that will cause some of the commercial values to be out of step with the rest of the county and could possible lead to shifting a (higher) tax burden over to residential property owners (and small business owners) as an unintended consequence of this.”
Under Ohio law, school districts are allowed to challenge property values. School districts are the primary recipients of property taxes in Ohio, and they generally file appeals on commercial properties that have recently been sold at a price higher than their assessed value, Keith said. In 2021, school districts challenged the values of 224 Montgomery County properties, adding $94.8 million in assessed value.
Only 8% of those, or 17 properties, were residential. More than 92%, 207, of the appeals were filed on commercial properties.
The bill now goes back to the House because it was altered from the version originally passed there.
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