Who can predict Central Ohio home prices?

Crystal ball for Central Ohio Home Prices

The Case- Schiller Index hit the fan recently. May 31, 2011 the Case-Shiller Index for the first quarter of 2011 were released.  Columbus is NOT in the Case -Schiller Index.

Diana Olick, CNBC Real Estate Reporter wrote:

“I have to say, leaving yesterday’s conference, I felt a strange unease, not because we talked about the same barriers to recovery that I talk about every day of the week, but because all these experts who are supposed to tell us when it’s all going to be alright…don’t have a clue.”

The headline that came out of a conference titled “Housing Summit 2011: Boom, Bust and Beyond” came from a quote from Robert Schiller.  Olick wrote:

“Claiming that he wasn’t making any predictions, he predicted that home prices could fall another 25 percent.”

That became the headline.   Recently real estate guru Ilyce Glink wrote on the ActiveRain Real Estate network:

By any measure, last week was a tough week for the housing market: According to the latest S&P Case/Shiller Index, home values have fallen back to where they were in 2002, although in some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, housing values have fallen back to where they were in the 1990s, or earlier.

Glink’s link in the paragraph quoted is to a pdf of the  the latest S&P Case/Shiller Index

Another 25% from today’s prices? Really?   Remember the Case-Shiller Index that created a stir when it came out a couple of weeks ago does not look at Columbus, Ohio.  Cleveland is in the Case-Shiller Index.  Columbus is not.  The Case-Shiller Index results are through March 2011.

My Columbus real estate site, Discover Columbus Ohio did home prices in March 2011! but to see March results it would have been the April report. By April I was doing Home Sales.  There is a cycle… on my three real estate sites (side bar here on ColumbusBestBlog.com Columbus real estate, Worthington real estate and Delaware County real estate.) The cycle for looking at the real estate market in Central Ohio  goes  Home Sales, Homes for Sale (inventory), Home Prices, Cha Cha Cha.  Unless something real interesting shows up….  I try to stay on the schedule.

March 2011 home prices are in the April market report posts on Discover Columbus Ohio – Columbus Ohio real estate. I wrote:

“The average sale price on a Dublin home was up 19.8% in March 2011 over the previous year, at $314,000.”

Of Olentangy schools I wrote: “The average sale price in March 2011 was $310,000, identical to March 2010.”

Westerville and Worthington average sale prices were down in March 2011… I wrote “Average sale price is $217,000 for the Worthington schools single family home in March 2011.  That is only down 1.8% from March 2010.” and “The average sale price for Westerville homes was down 12.6% from March 2010 prices at $174,000.”

Volatile home prices?

That was Dublin schools, Olentangy schools, Westerville schools and Worthington schools….

Moving on to Central Ohio home prices in May 2011….

Dublin* home prices are UP

“Dublin’s average home sale price of $333,000 is up 8.1% from May 2010.”

Olentangy school district home prices are down ; – (

“The average sale price is down 17.3″

Westerville* home prices are UP

“Westerville average home sale prices are up…7.3%”

Worthington* home prices are UP and inventory is down.

“The average sale price … was up 1.4% from last year.”

*The home prices are  single family home average sale prices with the school districts only.  I have median pricing in each Central Ohio real estate market report too.

“US Home Prices Could Still Fall a Lot More: Shiller” is the headline of the Reuters article that is linked above.

Today I read that Clear Capital said over 40% of the Columbus  market is REO?  We are on a baaaaaad list for housing prices for Clear Capital.

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Central Ohio homes for sale… homes for sale is “inventory.”   The official word “Inventory dropped.”  List prices are up…. that is the Good News!   The Voice for Real Estate in Central Ohio, the Columbus Board of REALTORS announced April 2011 sales results on Thursday.  To members.  To the media…  directly to the public.*  They, the Columbus Board of REALTORS ® have trademarked the words “The Voice for Real Estate in Central Ohio”?    It says TM after  “The Voice for Real Estate in Central Ohio” on the trade organizations site.

I always think it is “The Voice of Real Estate in Central Ohio” … rather than “The Voice for Real Estate in Central Ohio”  but Google helps me out…. This is an image of the Google results so of course the link,  cache, etc.  are not available.  

They (the Columbus Board of REALTORS®)  announced the Good News to members via email:

Columbus Board of REALTORS announces April 2011 sales results to members

Below was originally written for DiscoverColumbusOH.com (you see the posts from that real estate site on the sidebar of ColumbusBestBlog.com as “Columbus real estate”)  and I probably will post it there too at some point.

Central Ohio homes for sale by school district

Single family inventory (homes for sale) for Central Ohio school districts for Appril 2011:

Columbus – 9.1 months of inventory

• Homes for sale – 2658
• Homes sold – 291

Dublin – 8 months of inventory

• Homes for sale – 398
• Homes sold – 50

Olentangy - 7.8 months of inventory,

• Homes for sale – 559
• Homes sold -  72

Westerville -  8.9 months of inventory

• Homes for sale – 489
• Homes sold- 55

Worthington -  5.5 months of inventory

• Homes for sale – 249
• Home sold  – 45

Homes sold are April 2011 home sales.

Central Ohio school districts… I pay attention to these school districts mainly.  They are close to where I live and work.  Well actually the Columbus City School District is huge… and all over Central Ohio. I always worry my efforts to see how the market did the previous month will not match the “official” word when it comes out from the Columbus Board of REALTORS MLS.

* The Columbus Board of REALTORS site has information about the real estate market available to the public about the real estate market… you can find it if you need it…  They have a lot more detail available too…   The Columbus Dispatch covered the story…  Business First Columbus covered the story.  Real estate information is everywhere… today.

This site is doing Nablopomo… in May 2011. A post a day.   This has been tough.  The weekends are tough…  tomorrow back to the week day prompts.  Maybe.

Related Posts:

• 2011: Central Ohio Home Sales Miss…
• November 2011: Columbus Home Sales Up
• Columbus home prices “largest drop of any city measured except Detroit”
• The Columbus Board of REALTORS spoke… “prices inch up”
• Is Columbus a buyers market? July 2010

Central Ohio Home Prices… remain calm...

“With the S&P/Case-Shiller Index released today, everyone is aflutter with talk of a double-dip in house prices. Remain calm.  These are January numbers.  It’s almost April.  More recent figures exhibit more positivity for the 2011 housing market.”

The “today” was Tuesday in “Looking past the Case-Schiller it’s all about supply”

Scott Sambucci’s “ S&P/Case-Shiller Index released today, ” is a link but I broke that link is to an AP article, ‘Home price declines deepen in major US markets’ on Yahoo Finance.  All but two of the “major US Markets” had price declines in January 2011. Columbus is not one of the markets in the Case-Shiller Index.

Pretty deep info on home prices…

My Trendgraphix graphs are not as pretty as the Altos Research graphs but the Trendgraphix graphs are what I have….

Central Ohio Home Prices - remain calm

Dublin home prices
Lewis Center home prices
Powell home prices
Westerville home prices
Worthington home prices

Dublin home prices, Powell home prices, etc.  are February home prices, the Case-Shiller info was January.  The Central Ohio home prices links for Dublin, Lewis Center, Powell, Westerville and Worthington each gives a look at home prices for the area for the past 15 months.

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A client used those words recently, “pricing disconnect.” I can’t tell you the context of the conversation.. confidentiality you know…

Yes there is a “disconnect” between the prices of homes on the market and the prices of homes that sell. In the graph above the green line is obviously what homes for sale are priced at. The red line is the price that homes sold for.

There is a disconnect.

The graph is for homes (single family and condominium) in Franklin and Delaware Counties. The chart shows the past 15 months ending September 2007.

If a seller priced their home based on the competition and the neighbors are not priced competitively (with what has sold very, very recently) … the new listing will have that same pricing disconnect …  Priced the same as the rest of the neighborhood which is not selling.

Above is the frame fro the table of stats for the graph above with the difference between the sold price and the final list price (the list price the seller was at when they went under contract) for the past 15 months ( Full Table) Homes need to be priced within about 3 to 4% of the market value. Yes some buyers will make an offer on an overpriced listing and get it at a greater discount. That is probably true in all markets (sellers market, normal market, buyers market…

September 2007 homes in Central Ohio (Franklin and Delaware counties sold with in 96% of list price.

If a “seller” doesn’t need to sell and prices the house to reflect that, they will be with a large school of homeowners who while their home is on the market they really are not sellers.

Isn’t the September 2007 average sale price 81% of the average list price?

Real Living HER is the only brokerage in Central Ohio with TrendGraphix graphs….

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Columbus is a stable housing market. One of the best in the country. Says who? Says Forbes.com and Moody’s Economy.com!

From the Columbus Board of Realtors:

“Last year was the third highest number of sales ever in Central Ohio. Yes, it was down 4.5% from 2005 and the average sale price is down a `whopping’ 1%, but it was still a good year. Today, compared to 2004, only 3 years ago, we have sold close to the same number of houses and the average sales price is up nearly 3%. “

If you like ads click here… for an ad from the Columbus Board of Realtors. It’s a .pdf

Buy now

Ad … hey if it was Forbes.com there’d be pop ups and Steve Forbes would come walking across the screen occasionally to sell you something…

Here’s a graph for the Greater Columbus Area (Franklin and Delaware Counties… to me those two counties are all that matters… most of the time… apologies to outlying counties.)

Click and the graph will enlarge. The graph matches the numbers on the table below:

It’s a great time to buy!

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