What's the takeaway? The Central Ohio Real Estate Market is hanging in there and there's more good news than bad. Of course, your micro-market is all that mattes to you.

Today the local Board of Realtors announced official March numbers. Numbers, being what they are, can be divulged and manipulated in any number of ways….here’s the Board’s take…..

The 1,487 homes sold last month was 31.8 percent higher than the previous month’s sales of 1,128. Year to date sales of 3,678 lag 2010 by 7.9 percent, but are still 6.9 percent ahead of the 2,178 homes sold in the first quarter of 2009.

“At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we still have to keep in mind that 2010 home sales were significantly impacted by the second set of home buyer tax credits, offers Rick Benjamin, 2011 President of the Columbus Board of REALTORS®. “By comparison, March closings are actually 9.3 percent higher than homes closed in March of 2009 when the first round of tax credits was available.”

In addition, 2,512 homes were put in contract last month touting an 11.5 percent increase over the 2,252 contracted sales in March of 2010.

Homes in central Ohio this year have sold for an average of $143,773, down 3.7 percent from the average sale price in 2010, but up 3.8 percent from the average sale price in 2009. The average price of a home sold in March was $144,975, up 2.1 percent from the previous month ($140,770).

The number of homes listed for sale last month (3,886) dropped almost 22 percent from the previous year (4,972) bringing the total inventory of homes available for sale in central Ohio to 14,370, down 22.3 percent from one year ago.

“Home sales follow the simple economic concept of supply and demand,” adds Benjamin. “When the supply is higher than the demand, the product, in this case a home, is subject to sell for less. So a decrease in inventory is a positive for our market.”

“The other positive is, of course, last month’s drop in unemployment to 7.6 percent – the lowest point since January 2009.”

There were 2,280 homes listed for sale in Franklin County last month. The surrounding counties of Delaware and Licking saw 316 and 302 new listings respectively.

Chances are, if you live in Franklin County you may not care how things in the greater Central Ohio Market are….You care about how things in your community are selling or not selling. How are things going in your neck of the wood? Ask me, I’ll let you know.