June used to be the best month for home sales. Not this year. Home sales were down by 3.6% as compared to a year ago.
While other metros are reporting more listings and longer days on market, Central Ohio is stubbornly fighting a lack of inventory.
Who’s the culprit? Fewer new listings and even less new construction have resulted in a loss of inventory of 2.6%, while home values keep climbing at an average rate of 7% per year.
The Inventory Is Leveling Out
After falling for 6 years straight the inventory seems to be leveling out at 4,500 homes for sale. There’s no indication this will change anytime soon.
Many new listings are priced at the top of the market, whether they’ve been updated or not.
We are seeing 2 housing markets. Homes listed for less than $350,000 sold in just 18 days, while luxury homes over $700,000 took 72 days to find a buyer.
Of course, the bulk of all sales occurs in the lower price ranges. 78.9% of homes sold for less than $350,000 in June. Only 2.2% of buyers paid more than $700,000.
The New Construction Dilemma
A major problem contributing to the inventory shortage is the lack of new construction. As you can see below Columbus building permits have plummeted by 21% in the first half of this year.
The yellow parts of the chart represent the first half of 2019. The first column (2019 YTD) shows the total number of units permitted, the other ones refer to building types. “1 Unit” means single family homes, while “5+ Units” are apartments. “2018 YTD” was included as a total for comparison purposes.
Although you see cranes everywhere, Columbus lags far behind similar size cities like Austin and Nashville. It’s hard to imagine that we are permit only one third of the homes they are building in Nashville and only 20% as many new homes as in Austin.
June 2019 Housing Stats
Click this link to see detailed June 2019 Housing Data.
Here are the highlights (numbers compared to the same month a year ago):
- Closed Transactions – 3,226 – DOWN by 3.4%
- Pending Contracts – 3,872 – DOWN by 0.8%
- Inventory for Sale – 4,784 – DOWN by 2.6%
- New Listings – 3,965 – DOWN by 2.4%
- Days on Market – 23 – SAME
- Average Sales Price – $262,344 – UP by 7.2%
Call or text me TODAY at (614) 975-9650. Let me help you list NOW to benefit from the inventory shortage!