Delaware Earns Top Marks for Realistic Home Prices
Delaware City Schools has been improving its lot over the past several years on the State’s Report Cards and this month they are tops in the inagural “Realistic Price Index: for Delaware County schools it was announced today by Triumph Realty’s Toby Boyce who created the index.
“Real estate statistics are very fluent and just like anything else can be read any way you want to read them,” said Toby. “However, the media loves to talk about ‘pricing’ and how it is changing for the sold listings. However, it seems that the closer the list price is to the sale price the better that market is recovering – as sellers have adjusted the pricing to levels that the sellers are willing to pay and it has moved into a seller’s market.”
In the inagural report, Delaware City Schools had the lowest adjustment to its optimal price point as it was only 6.78% off the $149,760 optimal price. Olentangy also remains in the single digits with the optimal price coming in 9.0% lower than its average $412,435 list price.
| School District | Active | Sold* | List Price | Sale Price | Need list% | Change in List^ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delaware City Schools | 164 | 314 | $160,657 | $139,064 | $149,760 | -6.78% |
| Olentangy School District | 473 | 922 | $412,435 | $317,616 | $376,454 | -9.00% |
| Big Walnut School District | 91 | 185 | $449,218 | $239,707 | $350,612 | -21.95% |
| Buckeye Valley School District | 96 | 147 | $348,792 | $207,881 | $248,214 | -28.83% |
Looking at Months of Inventory
However, while researching the numbers the index struggled on one key element: months of inventory.
As I would have expected, Delaware (6.26) and Olentangy (6.16) are both extending themselves into the neutral category for months of inventory (get a definition on our real estate dictionary). Big Walnut is actually already a seller’s marketwith only 5.9 months of inventory and Buckeye Valley isn’t far enough behind at 7.76 months.
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- Delaware, Ohio, residents are pricing their homes more realistic than their county counterparts according to the innaugural Realistic Price Index.
Looking at the numbers, it appears that the biggest challenge the index faces is the price points of homes. Delaware City, when compared to the other districts, is homogenous with its blend of homes in the $100,000 to $250,000 range. However, the comparison in Buckeye Valley has $30,000 houses in Ashley being compared to $400,000 houses along the Scioto River. When the numbers were rerun it showed that the gap was fairly constant in the lower levels but became exagerated at the high end price point.
The Index’s Judgement
After deliberating, it became evident that the Realistic Price Index was actually showing how the high-end of the market was fairing in each of these school districts. When you measure the market via averages it takes everything down to a single number — however the more extreme the outliers the more extreme your averages become. Hence, you get big gaps between your current average list price for a home in an area and what the “average” home would sell for in those areas.
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