Toledo-area house prices slip 0.72% in 4th quarter
2/25/2011
Prices also declined in Ohio in Akron, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Sandusky. Prices increased in Lima and Youngstown and were up in Monroe.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency report showed that metro Toledo prices fell 0.72 percent in the fourth quarter from a year ago. Prices also were down 11.3 percent over the last five years. The area’s performance from a year ago put it 138th among 355 metro areas ranked by the agency, which does not provide average prices.
In Lima, prices rose 1.27 percent from a year ago and they were down just 3 percent over the past five years. Lima ranked 28th nationally. In Sandusky, prices were down just 0.5 percent from a year ago and down 5.81 percent over the last five years. Sandusky is among 75 unranked metro areas.
In Monroe, prices were up 0.25 percent from a year ago, giving the city a ranking of 73rd, but its prices are down 23.9 percent over the last five years. Dozens of cities had larger five-year dips and at least four metro areas, Las Vegas, and the California cities of Merced, Modesto, and Stockton saw five-year dips in excess of 50 percent.
Nationally, prices declined 3.95 percent from October through December compared to a year earlier. The housing agency’s acting-director, Edward DeMarco, blamed the nationwide decline on “lingering unemployment and elevated inventories of for-sale homes.”
The metro area with the largest rise in home prices was Bay City, Mich., which saw a 6.1 percent increase. The most troubled metro area was Reno, which struggled with a 10.3 percent decline in prices in the fourth quarter.
Among large Ohio cities, quarterly prices fell 1.5 percent in Akron, 1.4 percent in Cleveland, 0.3 percent in Columbus, and 1.1 percent in Dayton. Prices rose 0.1 percent in Cincinnati, and 0.4 percent in Youngstown.