Buying a house is a big decision. (art by svilen mushkatov)
If you listen to the news too much, you’d think that the entire market is bank-owned or short sale property.
Well that’s not true, by about 95%.
There are currently 1,737 Delaware County houses listed as active in the Columbus/Central Ohio Multiple Listing Service. Of those listings there are 67 short sales, 9 bank-owned properties, and only one active HUD or VA home. That equates to 95.57% of the homes that are being sold “traditionally” with only 0.52% of the homes being bank owned.
In all of the Central Ohio Multiple Listing Service there are 14,603 homes listed as active with 603 of them short sales, 203 bank-owned and 61 HUD or VA homes. Central Ohio is not as strong as Delaware County, but still isn’t in bad shape — with 93.93% of the homes being sold in “traditional” method and only 1.81% being sold as bank or HUD owned properties.
Information provided by the Central Ohio Multiple Listing Service and using “acceptance conditions” which is not a required field when entering a listing, the information is not guaranteed.
Because of all the hype by the Media, so many buyers think all the homes on the market are either short sales, bank-owned or on their way into foreclosure. And as you’ve pointed out, that’s most often NOT the case. Some folks are selling their homes in this market for the same reasons they’ve always had their homes for sale; job change to a new area, empty nesters wanting to downsize, newly married couples buying their first home, families now with too many children for their small, first home and plenty of other legitimate reasons. And we need to realize that most of these folks are working with a professional real estate agent who has advised them the fair market value of their home based on what similar homes in their area have sold for.
A visit to the Dealware County Clerk of Courts website
will show there are dozens of foreclousres weekly.
The number shown in the MLS is not reresentative of the
actual number. Due to the process required in Ohio, there
may be many in different phases of foreclosure.
The lenders, realtors, appraisers and numerous others
are seeing tremendous profits from this downturn. If anyone thinks banks are being hurt by the increased number of foreclosures, look at their profit lines.
However, it will be a short ride. The bubble will burst.
Curious, seems that Delaware’s foreclosure rate is much lower than elsewhere.