COLUMBUS – A tight real estate market got even tighter in central Ohio as the number of homes listed for sale dropped from a year ago.
“Just when we thought inventory couldn’t get any lower, it did,” said 2017 Columbus Board of Realtors president Mic Gordon. “The increase in new listings wasn’t enough to offset the high number of homes that went into contract bringing the number of homes left for sale to a new record low.”
The 1,594 central Ohio homes and condos sold in January represented a 1.3 percent increase from January 2016 although sales were down 29.2 percent from December, according to monthly data released by the board Wednesday.
Nationwide, existing home sales rose 3.3 percent in January to the fastest pace in a decade as Americans shrugged off rising mortgage rates. Steady job gains, modest pay raises and rising consumer confidence are spurring healthy home buying even as borrowing costs have risen since last fall.
The median sale price of a home in Columbus in January was $160,800, a 5.1 percent increase over January 2016. Nationwide, median home prices jumped 7.1 percent from a year earlier to $228,900.
Buyers are snapping up homes, with the typical house for sale remaining on the market in Columbus and across the nation for just 50 days.