Next month's October's Numbers will be the spooky ones.

Released today from the Columbus Board of Realtors with less of the overly-optimistic jagon we’re used to….

Home values continue to rise which is good news for central Ohio. The average sale price for the first nine

months of the year is $161,204 up 7.4 percent from the beginning of 2010 according to the Columbus Board of REALTORS®.

There were fewer homes listed for sale last month than is customary for September. Over the last five years,

there was an average of 3,710 homes added to the market during the month of September. However, last

month only 2,997 residential homes were added to the already elevated inventory in central Ohio.

Although slightly lower than August, the total residential listings in September (16,728) was still higher than

it’s been since August of 2008 when the inventory level rose to 16,975.

“Inventory levels had come down over the last year and a half – which is what we were working towards,” said

Sue Lusk-Gleich, President of the Columbus Board of REALTORS®. “When inventory levels are too high, the

increased competition forces some homeowners to sell at prices that are too low which in turn often affects

the values of other neighboring homes.”

“In order to re-balance the market, we either need the inventory to decrease or the number of buyers to increase.

And since the tax credit incentives brought many buyers into the market earlier than we would have seen

otherwise, we have a smaller pool of potential home buyers to absorb the inventory now.”

Home sales were down 28.4 percent in September and the number of homes that went into contract was also down

almost 25 percent which doesn’t bode went for October home sales.

“When comparing sales figures to the previous year, we need to remember that home sales have been elevated

since April of 2008 due to the tax credits,” adds Lusk-Gleich. “Even so, sales are still up four percent year to date.”

EDIT: I received an email from a reader saying this post didn’t jive with the Story in The Columbus Dispatch which quoted the The Ohio Association of Realtors as saying, “The situation wasn’t as bad in central Ohio, the group’s figures show, as the average price fell 1.9 percent during September to $156,897.” and pointed out that , “This is a huge discrepancy.”

Yes, but all I’ve heard on the radio or saw on the news was OAR and National Association of Realtors numbers and quotes. Even as I type this our local NPR station is playing an interview with the president of OAR who reminds us that all real estate is local and different numbers in different parts of the country mean different things.

The reader’s OAR quote was Central Ohio specific but I don’t know what OAR considers Central Ohio compared to CBR considers Central Ohio.  Numbers, as we all know, can be conveniently manipulated. That’s why it’s important to talk to an informed Real Estate Agent about your community.

Indeed, the Columbus Real Estate market is not the Ohio Real Estate market just as your local neighborhood real estate market is not the same as the Columbus Real Estate market. Discrepancies abound and if you’re buying or selling a house in a targeted area, that is the only market that matters to you.

The Columbus Board of REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service (MLS) serves all of Franklin, Delaware, Fayette,

Madison, Morrow, Pickaway and Union Counties and parts of Champagne, Clark, Hocking, Licking, Fairfield, Knox,

Logan, Marion, and Ross Counties.