With all the bad news we've been hearing on the housing market ... we're happy to report there is some good news to be found locally.
Sure it's true the Tri-State housing market began to slow in May of last year ... Local 12's Paula Toti says there is a silver lining.
It's true the group has a vested interest in people feeling good about local housing. But the Board of Realtors has a point real estate is local .... and bad news in Florida or Nevada doesn't mean bad news here.
A recent survey by a group that insures home loans finds the Midwest is the least risky region in the country to make a home loan. And out of the 50 largest housing markets Greater Cincinnati ranks the 7th least risky.
The report by the PMI Mortgage Insurance Company also finds if you're looking to buy a house in our area ... there's a 92 percent chance the property value will not go down over the next two years.
Compare that to Boston where there's a 50 percent chance the value will go down in the next two years.
Now maybe you've heard Ohio has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Maybe the highest ... depending on which statistics you read. even so when you look at the top ten county's in Ohio with the worst foreclosure rates ... Hamilton County is not included. The group policy matters Ohio says the biggest problem is in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County and Northern Ohio in general where there's higher unemployment.
Realtors are starting to talk like stock brokers ... invest for the long haul. Prices may have dropped a bit in the last year and a half ... but there way up from 2003 ... and again expected not to go down two years from now if you were to buy today.
Now in all fairness maybe a little bad news ... for 15 months in a row the number of homes sold were fewer than the number sold the previous month.
So there is a slow down ... not a price plummet.
