Bob Posner

The Dayton Area Board of Realtors just released housing numbers for the first quarter of 2008. The number of homes sold were down 14.61%. Surprisingly, new listings were down 3.3%. I would have expected that number to be higher.

The good news, not great news is that the average home prices in the area have declined only 4.15% in the first quarter. In many places around the country housing prices have dropped dramatically. Homes in Las Vegas were down 23%, San Francisco down 17% and Los Angeles down 20% in February alone. Robert Shiller, a Yale economist, said earlier this month that home prices could fall 30 percent from their peak in many large metro areas. These cities had huge appreciation rates for many years.

Dayton has generally experienced a modest 2-4 % annual appreciation rate on homes in the area. I think home prices for the year will drift down due to pressure from the economy, media hype and foreclosures. I just don’t think average price declines will be anywhere near the depreciation other areas of the country are experiencing. I expect it to be in the single digits if that.

Currently, the market is very active and many buyers are pulling the trigger and purchasing houses.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Dayton Area Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.