COLUMBUS, Ohio – The housing market in central Ohio maintained a scorching pace through the first eight months of 2012, bringing back fond memories of housing boom that ended abruptly seven years ago.
Home sales were 22.9 percent higher than the number of homes sold from January through August of 2012 and exceed any previous year, according to data released Thursday by the Columbus Board of Realtors. The 2,729 homes sold during August were 11.1 percent higher than the year before and another record for the month.
“Although we’ve seen positive gains all year, home sales over the summer were off the charts. There was only one summer, back in 2005 at the height of the housing boom, when we came close to seeing the volume of homes sold this year,” board president Chris Pedon said.
After peaking in 2005, annual home sales in Columbus declined every year from 2006 through 2010.
Having passed the peak of the summer sales season, pending sales have started to decelerate but were still 9.2 percent higher than a year ago.
The median sale price of $154,900 was up 6.8 percent from 2012 was still considerably lower than the peak price of $192,424 in June of 2006. Homes were selling about 20 days quicker than they were one year ago.