It was a tumultuous year in 2022 for real estate in central Ohio, as buyers and sellers coped with a shortage of houses on the market, rising inflation and rising interest rates. As the calendar flips to 2023, the new year begins with similar uncertainty.
Buffie Patterson is a broker and treasurer for Columbus Realtors. She said the average sales price has increased by 9.4% since last December, up to $318,581.
Homes spend an average of 29 days on the market. That is up from an average of 18 days last year in December 2021.
"We anticipate that we will still see home prices increase and that we will see days on the market stabilize over time, but we are still healthy and consider this still a great time to buy,” Patterson said.
Fayette County was a bit of an outlier. The county saw average home sale prices jump by nearly 50% in December, fueled in part by the announcement that Honda will build an electric vehicle battery factory in the county.
"Really any area where there's going to be growth and development, you can expect to see an increase in home prices because there will be a rise in demand for housing in that area,” Patterson said.
For the foreseeable future, Patterson said, central Ohio will continue to see a challenge with housing inventory, compounded by developments such as the Intel plant coming to the region.
"But we do anticipate—and we have seen—there being more development in terms of multi-family properties. I think we've seen a 40% increase in the central Ohio area for multi-family and apartment growth,” she said.
Patterson adds that home builders are picking up the pace of construction despite persistent supply chain issues that have plagued the industry.
For more information, checkout the Columbus Realtors December housing report.
