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Valley housing market up in ’13, data show
YOUNGSTOWN
Amid positive December figures, the Mahoning Valley’s housing market showed signs of moderate and steady growth last year, as both the national and local economic climates continued their slow but steady recovery.
While 2013 closed sales dropped a slight 1.4 percent in Columbiana County, Mahoning and Trumbull counties showed solid gains at 10.2 percent and 8 percent, respectively, according to the most-recent figures from the Youngstown-Columbiana Association of Realtors.
The median sales price in Columbiana County spiked 18.2 percent to $85,000. Meanwhile, Mahoning County saw a more moderate gain of 1.3 percent last year, ticking up to $76,000, and Trumbull County reported a 2.4 percent drop to a median sales price of $71,250.
Homes spent an average of 11 fewer days on the market in Mahoning County and 24 fewer days on the market in Trumbull County, while that statistic remained unchanged in Columbiana County compared with the year before.
Mekael Teshome, an economist at PNC Financial Services, said the results in the Mahoning Valley were consistent with what his bank characterized nationally as a “persistent and moderate recovery” from the Great Recession.
Inventory was down at the end of 2013, according to YCAR statistics, indicating that the market is selling available homes, though at a moderate rate.
“As home sales proceed, we are absorbing that inventory,” Teshome said, which is an “indication of a healing housing market.”
Teshome said the Valley’s housing market benefited from affordable prices.
He pointed to a Moody’s Analytics index that showed the median home price was 0.28 times the median income in the Youngstown metropolitan area. That measurement, the price-to-income ratio, registers at 1.7 nationwide, he said. That means that the median cost of homes in the Valley is significantly less than the median income in this area, compared with the national situation where home prices exceed income.
Teshome projected that home prices will continue to grow this year, dampened slightly by rising mortgage rates.
“That won’t hurt affordability too much because affordability is so high,” he said. “But it will help homeowners in the region because it will increase wealth.”
The housing market also should benefit from greater stability in the fiscal climate this year, compared with last year.
Last year was fraught with uncertainty, with a federal government shutdown, budget battles, tax increases and sequestration cuts causing significant volatility.
Fluctuations abounded in YCAR’s monthly reports on the Valley’s housing market in 2013, but the December results were cause for optimism moving into the future, said Michael D. Klacik, broker for Klacik Realty in Poland.
According to YCAR’s data, Trumbull County’s closed sales spiked 27 percent and Mahoning County sales remained level, compared with December 2012. The number of days that homes spent on the market decreased by double digits in both counties, according to YCAR’s year-over-year comparisons.
Klacik said those numbers were very promising, given the poor weather and holiday season last month.
But those December trends did not extend to Columbiana County, where closed sales dropped by 24 percent and homes spent 21 more days on the market last month, compared with a year ago. The median sales price also jumped by 8 percent.
Klacik attributed Columbiana County’s results to added value from that region’s burgeoning shale activity. He said many homeowners delayed selling because they signed gas and mineral leases, which drove up the value of their property.
“A lot of them have signed leases, and it’s more beneficial to hold onto them,” he said.
In terms of the local economic climate, Klacik said he believed more fiscal certainty in 2014 should help ease concerns and drive improvement in the housing market.
“All that does is create fear [in] our markets, and when people are afraid, they hold off,” he said.