Sadie’s Take on Delaware

“How’s the market?”

It is a great conversation starter. Even this past-weekend as I’m battling extreme pain at the Urgent Care Center the doctor begins asking me about the market. I didn’t mind, but was in so much pain that I didn’t pass him a business card.

I have to admit that I’ve gotten away from market reports, and to be honest it was partially because the market was pretty rough - and the other side was that I just ran out of time.
However, with the first quarter already past us, thought I’d get back on that high horse with some numbers about the first quarter.

The basic points:

• We are still in a buyer’s market. With currently 296 active listings in the Columbus/Central Ohio Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and an average of 22 selling per month, there is currently more than 13 months of inventory on the market.
• Listing Price/Selling Price is Holding, Sort of. The key to remember here is that the listing price is the most-recent price for when the house went into contract. So a house originally listed for $500,000 that was reduced to $400,000 and sold at $300,000 would be 75% of list price rather than the more accurate 60%.
• Weather, Market Plays Its Toll. The first-quarter 2008 is down sharply from last year both in number of sales (off 31.25%) and cost per square foot (down 9.6%). Of course the winter this year was much harder than last year — and I’m seeing a much larger bump in spring 2008 than I did in 2007.

So looking at little closer at the city of Delaware we see:

What does all this mean?

I’m not sure, but the words of a professor at Hondros during my pre-licensing classes keeps ringing in my ears: “The worse the winter, the better the spring.”

So quarter two will be the telling tale for the Delaware, Ohio real estate market.

All housing numbers are courtesy of the Columbus/Central Ohio Multiple Listing Service and are assumed accurate but not guaranteed.

Photograph by Peter Szustka and used via license of Stock Xchng.

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