Do you know the nations fastest selling Real Estate Markets? The housing market is slowing down and I should be able to get a better deal on a house if I’m looking to purchase this year, right? Not so fast because Cincinnati, Ohio remains one of the fastest selling real estate markets in all the nation. Let’s talk about that.
Hey guys, welcome back. It’s Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and TeamSztanyo.com where we are helping you find your home and strengthen your family. I’m in a good mood. There’s blue sky out behind me. It’s not miserably gray. We made it through February. I got to go to the Caribbean with my wife. I’m in a good mood. I hope you’re in a good mood too! Wherever you’re at. Whether you’re watching this morning, afternoon, or evening. It’s Monday when I’m recording. I just had an awesome weekend with my kids. My wife. Saturday was a great rest day. We like to take things slow, pancakes, rest walks at an afternoon birthday party for my older boys. Took my three younger kids to a park and then we went and got this burger at this place in Westchester. There’s one in West Chester and Norwood Quatman Cafe, third pound of a burger, French fries, and a beer for $8.50 cents. It was crazy. If you’re in the area, you should check it out.
Why You Need to Invest in Real Estate in Cincinnati
All right! You’re not here for burger reviews, are you? If you are, I’ll make a burger review channel. I wouldn’t mind going around the city reviewing burgers for you fine folks. Let’s talk about the fastest selling real estate markets. Let’s talk about what’s happening where you are in early March. Right now, I wanna read this article from the Business Courier and its titled, “Report : Cincinnati remains one of the nation’s fastest-selling housing markets“. Let’s get into it.
The article by Abby Miller reads:
Cincinnati Home Sales may have taken a nose dive at the beginning of 2023, but the housing market is still hot off the momentum it had in 2022.
Zillow’s latest market report published February 21st, found Cincinnati tied for the second fastest selling market among the top 50 major metropolitan markets across the United States.
The national median days on market was 31, but Cincinnati’s was just nine days.
So across the nation, homes sit on the market on average, or I’m sorry, the median days is 31 days on the market and Cincinnati, that number is only nine, nine days about a third of everywhere else.
It’s also just four days longer than the median days on market a year ago, despite mortgage rates increasing substantially since that time.
So in other places around the country, well, mortgage rates went up here too, but inventory has gone up around the country. It’s not happening here in Cincinnati. Inventory has not gone up. It’s still only lasting nine days on the market is the median amount.
The Cincinnati market remains one of the fastest selling in the nation as local housing inventory remains critically low.
Have you heard me say that on the channel a few times, critically low inventory just a few times in the past few years. Doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
Zillow found there are 5% fewer homes for sale than a year ago and 37% less than in January, 2020.
I’m gonna go over to this chart right here. I’m gonna show you guys. This is the inventory in Butler, Claremont, Warren and Hamilton Counties. In February of 2021, the amount of homes for sale was 3,380. In February 2022, you can see that was lower. And in 2023, that number is 2,794 homes for sale, which means we’re down 17%. The inventory is simply not rising. So that’s keeping prices stable, that’s keeping it somewhat difficult for you as buyers to go buy a house.
The Real Estate Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, President Anne Uchtman told the Business courier in February the low inventory is one of the biggest indicators that Cincinnati isn’t yet ready for the 2023 housing market. Cool down some predict could occur this year.
So I’m talking with clients every single day or new people who are moving to the city, people who wanna sell their house. They’re saying, what’s the market like? It’s probably better for buyers, right? Housing prices are gonna go down, right? And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes.
I know that’s what you’re kind of hearing nationally. It’s just simply not happening here in the city. It’s probably just because of this YouTube channel, right? I mean, everyone’s coming to the city because we’re coming in on 4,000 subscribers. But no, that’s not it. That is definitely not the reason. But there probably is something to the fact of people leaving some cities and more people moving to the Midwest. There’s a certain amount of factors that have happened since Covid where you can take your job anywhere and you can move to a city where the cost of living is more affordable. You can get more house, you can have maybe a less stressed out lifestyle in general, but still get a lot of great city amenities. A lot of people have been moving to the Midwest from the coast. So you see inventory rising maybe in cities, in several cities in California, New York, Seattle, places like that, Chicago and in cities in the Midwest, you’re seeing tight inventory seal because more people are moving in.
A balanced housing market has about six months of inventory. In Cincinnati supply is currently a little over a month, Uchtman said.
So, I’ve got more charts for you. Let’s look at that and here’s what I think is going on. So this chart is the month supply of inventory over the last two years. And a balanced market is when you have six months of inventory. We haven’t sniffed six months in several years. Back in February of 21, we were at 0.9 months of inventory. It went up. Usually goes up slightly in the winter because less people are out buying houses in the winter. So you can see it kind of went up, it was very low in the summer of 21. It’s a very hot market. Went up a little bit in the spring, then it went super low in the spring and summer of 2022.
That was the hottest we had seen the market in terms of pricing. If you go over to this pricing chart, you can see May and June is when the median price in the area peaked at $288,000 per house. It’s now down to $252,000 but it started back at $215,000 just two years ago. So it’s up 17% in two years back to this month’s supply of inventory chart.
And what you’re seeing is when the rates did rise quickly last summer and into the winter, you do see that inventory actually did go up. It went up fairly dramatically. You know, it didn’t hit that six months of a normal market, but it went all the way up to 1.8. And in terms of the past few years, that’s quite a bit. That means if there were no new houses that hit the market, it would take 1.8 months for all the houses to sell.
Turn the page to 2023 in January and you see a steep decline in January and then another one in February 23. And we’re all the way back to one month of supply. So what I think has happened is rates went up and days on market went a little bit longer. As buyers were slower, they’re like, “Man, I can’t buy as much house now. I’m not gonna buy right now”. And so average days on market did go up a little bit. Supply did go up a little bit last summer into the fall, but now I think that’s normalizing. I think buyers are now realizing, hey, the rates kind of are what they are. They’re in that six, maybe 6% to 7% range. If you look historically, and we did another video on that that’s pretty average. They’ve always been at around 6% the last 30, 40 years. It was really the last few years that were the abnormality when they were down around , 3.5%, something like that. Those were the weird years. And if you locked in, then you’re feeling great. But now we’re kind of are where we are.
And in people looking at the economy, see if you still got a curb, inflation rates might go up a little bit. I might actually want to buy now at the 6% in case it goes up to 7%, 8% or 9%. Back to the article.
New listings also are down in Cincinnati showing an 18% year over year decrease according to Zillow.
So what’s going on with sellers, I think this is another dynamic that’s actually leading to the low inventory, is the fact that sellers have a lot of equity in the house. They could sell the house and cash out and get a lot of that equity out of it, but they also refinanced probably one or two or three years ago at 3% , 2.5%, 3.5%.
And they’re like, do I really want to sell my house? Pay the taxes, get all the equity out, go buy a more expensive house at six and a half percent when I’m locked in here at 3%. The fact that that’s part of the market right now I think is also keeping inventory low cuz a lot of sellers are just like, you know what? We’ll just redo the kitchen. We’ll just add an addition on the back. We’ll take that equity out of the house and we’ll stay here because we’re locked into this low rate that’s keeping the inventory low. Back to the article.
In its new report, Zillow also listed Cincinnati’s Zillow Home Value Index as $252,129. The index, which has been reformulated for 2023, reflects the value a typical property in a given area, not just the value of sold homes.
Cincinnati’s Index is about $12,000 higher than the Cincinnati’s median sale price for January, which was $240,00. According to data from the MLS of Greater Cincinnati, it’s also just over 6% higher from last year’s. Zillow index.
Data from realtor.com in late 2022 similarly showed that Cincinnati home sales are expected to climb 3% in 2023. Prices are expected to rise 6.1%, which would make Cincinnati one of the nation’s strongest housing markets.
So you’re looking around nationally and inventory’s growing days on markets are growing and prices may be going down here in Cincinnati. What we’ve seen since last summer or last year I should say, prices went way, way, way up in the summer and then it kind of went down a little bit in the fall and they’re kind of hovering there and they’ll probably go either stay there or maybe even go slightly up this year just because again, inventory is so low here and it’s a desirable city to live.
Local real estate agents predict 2023 could be the year that Cincinnati housing markets begin to mirror pre pandemic levels. A slow transition toward a more balanced market could happen. But it would largely require the local housing inventory to have about 1,200 to 1,500 homes available.
That might be a different location from what I’m looking at, the numbers of houses available. Maybe that’s a smaller radius, but the point being there needs to be more inventory if prices are gonna slow down. Otherwise, we’re gonna see about the same of what we’ve seen in the last few years.
Team Sztanyo! Your Trusted Guide in Real Estate Investment
There you go. Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky continue to be one of the Fastest selling real estate markets in the nation are at least the fastest. Selling inventory is still low prices compared nationally are still affordable. Cost of living is affordable. You can get a great house here, you can raise a family here. It’s a great place to live. It’s keeping the inventory low, but compared nationally, it’s still gonna be more cost effective than a lot of other cities, a lot of other places to live. As always, if you’re looking to buy or sell a home or you know someone who is, we would love to be your realtor of choice. Give us a call at Team Sztanyo (513) 813-6293. Thank you, guys, so much! We’ll see you next time.