I-TEAM Consumer Alert: Priced Out of Home Ownership

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Buying a house is not like it used to be.

Realtors say it’s been crazy navigating the housing market, and the prices of homes don’t make it any easier.

News Center 7′s Xavier Hershovitz investigates what’s causing the home price pain.

Pat Corle is the President-elect for Dayton Realtors and has been in the real estate market for more than 30 years.

She’s seen a lot in her time, but the last few years have been “crazy.”

From listings selling quickly after the pandemic to ever-changing interest rates, it now takes people a little longer to find that perfect house.

“I’ve had clients for up to a year. Sometimes because they’re looking for that diamond and sometimes we find it quickly and oftentimes it takes longer,” Corle said.

News Center 7 wanted to know where are homes the most affordable and where have they gone up the most?

“Everybody wants a three or four-bedroom with two bathrooms and a beautiful yard. The challenge is there’s six people trying to get that two- or three-bedroom home that hits the market,” Corle said.

That creates a bidding war, sometimes pushing homes out of someone’s budget and making that once affordable home, no longer affordable.

“We hate that. It’s bad for the client, it’s bad for our community, and it puts them in a financial situation that nobody wants to be in,” Corle said.

News Center 7 wanted to know why that was happening.

“We went 10 or 12 years without really having any major subdivisions approved,” Chris Fine, the development director in Miamisburg said.

Communities such as Miamisburg, are working toward building new homes.

“We’ve seen a lot of success the last couple of years,” Fine said.

There are three new subdivisions in the works in Miamisburg with around 575 residential units, and these projects take time.

The early stages start in Fine’s office.

“We start from the beginning with just a bare piece of ground, and we talk about zoning. Does it have the zoning? Can we help them through the zoning process all the way up to building permitting and inspection,” Fine said.

Fine now says developers can now build 30 to 35 homes a year quickly adding to the new home inventory.

Huber Heights Mayor Jeff Gore said, “We have probably upwards to 2,000 homes that will be coming in inventory over the next several years.”

In Huber Heights, Gore aid new homes have been a major focus for the city. It has seen major business developments and he said new homes go hand-in-hand.

“Those businesses follow the people. People don’t follow the businesses, right,” Gore said.

Their focus is to approve housing projects, so the city reflects its diverse population.

“We still want to make sure that we have lots of options available for all those different people in whatever stage of life or whatever they need to have,” Gore said.

People selling their homes to move into a new home is opening up even more inventory on the housing market.

What about rentals? Earlier this year, a CNBC analysis found that Dayton-Kettering rent prices jumped more than 44% in the last five years. So, News Center 7 wanted to take a look at rent prices this year.

According to Zillow, the median rental in Dayton was $950 in January. Median rent went up each month hitting a high of $1,050 in October but, the median price went down this month to $1,000.

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