The average sales price year-to-date is $245,623 and represented a 3.8% rise over 2022′s year-to-date numbers. The median sales price also grew, from $197,950 in 2022 to $210,000 through May 2023, a nearly 6.1% increase.
“Year to date, we’re down a little bit, but prices are still up,” said Greg Blatt of Dayton Realtors. “It’s an inventory issue. Until we can get the inventories up, I think you’re going to see this pattern continue.”
That low inventory is making searching for a home a daunting challenge for people like 48-year-old Ian Savage, who spent from January until May searching for a home after rent for his apartment nearly doubled.
The experience of being a first time homebuyer was “brutal,” he said.
“A lot of houses (were) way overpriced and right at the very edge of my budget,” he said. “The houses you’re bidding on for the price they are is ... it’s crazy.”
Savage said it wasn’t unusual to get word of a home going up on the market that morning, only to find it snatched up by someone else later that same day.
“My realtor called me at like 10 a.m. (one day) and said ‘One just came on the market,” and I said “I’ll be done working at 3. Schedule it for then,” he said. “On our way there, the selling agent called him and said ‘Don’t bother come in. We accepted an offer.’”
Savage said he was looking in the Kettering, Beavercreek, Washington Twp. and Miami Twp. areas for a home, but there would be day when nothing in his price range would pop up.
“When you zoom out on the whole area (via an online map), there’s this big white spot there were no listings in the $200,000 or less area, especially in ... some parts of Kettering. I grew up there,” he said. “(Some homes there) are not worth $150,000 to $170,000 and they’d be on the market for a day or so. I got outbid several times.”
Sales of single-family homes and condominiums in May totaled 1,323, a 13.9% decrease from the 1,537 sales reported in May 2022, the ninth consecutive month of year-over-year losses.
“The interesting thing is May is usually a month where we see an increase in activity,” Blatt said. “It’s kind of surprising that month over month, from last year, it was down.”
The drop in home sales continued the same pattern from previous months in 2023, with a strong demand being held up by a lack of available properties, according to Dayton Realtors.
The median sales price in May came in at $225,000, beating last year’s figure by nearly 2.3%. The average price of $260,012 fell short of last year’s price by almost 1.1%.
There were 1,493 new listings added in May, down 26% from last year’s 2,034, while year-to-date listings tallied 6,328, an 18% drop from last year.
Total inventory showed 989 properties available at month’s end, representing a supply of just under one month based on May’s pace of sales.
Constructing new homes to make house hunting less daunting is one solution, but not an easy one, Blatt said.
“Home building is a slow process,” Blatt said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, that’s for sure.”
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