Will housing growth continue in Valley, Ohio?

Will housing growth continue in Valley, Ohio?

By JAMISON COCKLIN

jcocklin@vindy.com

POLAND

Two years ago the Poland office of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services was the strongest performer in all of Ohio, making sales at a time when most of the industry was still emerging from the low point of the financial crisis.

Today, markets in Poland and across the Mahoning Valley are even stronger. Altogether, Ohio’s housing market is posting solid numbers, recording 12 months of consecutive sales gains, according to June data from the Ohio Association of Realtors.

But as headlines have indicated in recent weeks, a shroud of uncertainty is covering the bright spot that has been the housing market nationwide and in Ohio, leading some to question how long the strong sales can last.

In July, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that during the second quarter of 2012 the economy expanded by a mere 1.5 percent.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that 163,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in July, beating economist’s expectations, but stoking concern and confusion with news that the national unemployment rate jumped from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent.

Wavering consumer confidence and a decline in consumer spending during the second quarter are linked in some ways to national home sales, which posted a gain of 9.7 percent during the same period, but remained well below its rate of growth during the same quarter in 2011.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.