Ohio still has a sellers’ market, but it isn’t what it once was

Across the state of Ohio, the housing market is keeping agents and consumers busy, even if not all of their efforts are fruitful. Beset by a lack of inventory, real estate professionals throughout the state say they are dealing with multiple offer situations with buyers having to put offers in on multiple homes before finally closing a deal.

“Inventory is very low, especially at the lower price points, we are seeing multiple offers and things are selling pretty quickly,” Holly Maloney, a Cincinnati-based eXp Realty agent, said. “Things are going [from] $10,000 to $30,000 over asking and people are doing appraisal gap coverage just to win a bid and be competitive.” 

But while the Buckeye State’s housing market is hot, with a HousingWire Data Market Action Index score of 49 as of April 11 — anything over 30 is considered a seller’s market — local professionals say the market is not as frenetic as it used to be. 

Hot, but not too hot

“When I say it is a competitive market, it is not like it was four years ago,” Jose Medina, a Cleveland-based Keller Williams broker and team leader, said. “For example, I just listed a home and within 24 hours I had two offers on it. The same house three years ago would have had at least nine offers in the first three days. It is a very strong sellers’ market, but it is not as robust as it once was.”

Medina attributes some of this to the state’s inventory situation. While not necessarily good, it is better than it was at the height of the pandemic market.

As of April 4, the 90-day average number of active single family listings was 11,669, down from nearly 30,000 listings in November 2019. Even with that drop, it is still up from a pandemic market trough of 6,916 listings in late April 2022, according to HousingWire Data. 

Although local Ohio real estate professionals are glad to see more inventory on the market, it is not nearly enough to satiate demand. As of earlier this month the 90-day average number of single family listings hitting the market each week was 1,407, fractionally above the number of new listings for the same week over in the past four years. But the figure is still below the April 2019 number of 2,295 listings. 

Sellers hold out

Ohio-based real estate professionals attribute the lack of listings to the current interest rate environment.

“There are a lot of sellers sitting on their houses because they have a low interest rate,” Michelle Billings, the president of Ohio Association of Realtors and a Coldwell Banker Realty agent, said. “Also, with the rising home prices, while they may have a lot of equity, the majority of that equity is going to go into the next house they buy and not all sellers want to do that.”

Medina also believes the current cohort of inventory is not enticing enough for some potential sellers to pull the plug and list.

“There is not a lot of exciting inventory for their interest to be piqued,” Medina said. “I definitely think there are some sellers who would move if there was something good enough out there for them to want to make that move. Those premium properties that are move-in-ready are selling quickly and you can push the price on them to the upper part of the range, but with things that need work, we are seeing those sitting and being discounted.”

Local real estate professionals say the majority of sellers listing their homes right now are ones dealing with life changes such as divorce, marriage, a growing family or are needing to relocate for work.

With the tight inventory and multiple offer situations, home prices in the state have risen from a 90-day average median list price in April 2019 of $174,900 to an all-time high of nearly $300,000 last summer, according to HousingWire Data.

Although these home prices may be shocking to buyers who have not transacted real estate in several years, Maloney said the price growth was a bit overdue. 

“You talk with some people who are waiting for prices to drop and I tell them that they aren’t going to,” Maloney said, “During the pandemic our prices went up, but we didn’t have that big swing like on the East Coast or in the Sun Belt. The prices are where they need to be now — they were way too low before — and I think they will keep going up. But those clients or even parents of first-time buyers, who haven’t bought a home in 15 or 20 years, they think the prices are very high.”

Economic uncertainty

With economic uncertainty rising, in part due to the Trump administration’s ever-changing tariff policies, some local Ohio real estate professionals are anticipating slower housing market conditions this summer and fall.

“The spring market kind of takes care of itself because people are just excited to be outside again and to go look at things, but I think this year, this market will be the most robust part of the year,” Medina said. “I think the summer and fall markets will be a bit more dampened with sales more subdued than we would typically see. We were hoping 2024 would be the bottom for the market, but we are four months in and 2025 feels like a repeat of 2024.”

While Billings acknowledges the challenges currently facing both the market and consumers, she is a bit more optimistic.

“I am anticipating a busy summer market,” Billings said. “I think we will definitely continue to see home prices increase. Do I think we will have the same market activity as we did when rates were at 3%? Maybe not, but I think it will be a very healthy and growing market.”