Source: Dayton Daily News, OhioAug.mini storage 22--DAYTON -- July was the best month for Dayton-area home sales since before the Great Recession, the Dayton Area Board of Realtors said in a report released Wednesday.Sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums completed last month surged 20.7 percent to 1,336 homes from July 2012. That's the highest number of homes sold in a single month since the sale of 1,421 homes in June 2007, according to the realtors group.The July average price in the Dayton market was $136,850, up 6.7 percent from July 2012, the realtors group said.However, the number of homes sold and the average price remain below peak levels. The most homes sold in one month was 1,521 in August 2005. The Dayton market's peak average sale price was $150,919 in June 2007, according to figures provided by the realtors group.The Dayton area as defined by the realtors group includes Greene, Montgomery and Preble counties and part of Warren County.Worries that rising mortgage interest rates would slow the pace of home sales proved to be unfounded."The interest rate jump has not affected the homebuying market because they're still great. I grew up with really high interest rates and thought anything under 7 was awesome," said Daryl Dunn, vice president of residential sales for the Lebanon firm Henkle Schueler Realtors. A 4.5 percent interest rate "is still an awesome rate."Still, real estate industry experts are concerned that higher borrowing costs going forward could dampen an already slow overall economic recovery. Some homebuyers whose sales are being reported may have locked in lower rates before the rates rose."It's clearly giving people pause after a very strong start to the selling season," said Shaun Bond, director of University of Cincinnati's Real Estate Center.However, the fundamentals boosting the housing market haven't changed, Bond said.Interest rates remain at historically low levels, averaging 4.57 percent for a fixed-rate 30-year mortgage in the week ending Aug. 14, according to Bankrate.com, based on a weekly survey the company conducts with the nation's five largest banks and five largest thrifts. Bankrate.com is a website that tracks interest rates for various mortgage, debt and retirement products.But as the Federal Reserve Board mulled "tapering" its bond-buying activity known as quantitative easing, interest rates surged one percentage point from May to July. After stabilizing, interest rates are rising again in August, said Greg McBridself storage, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com.The Federal Reserve has purchased bonds to lower long-term interest rates and encourage more borrowing and spending.Rates jumped from a low of 3.52 percent for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at the beginning of May to 4.66 percent by July 10, McBride said. Rates are now hovering around 4.75 percent, McBride said."Mortgage rates on 30-year fixed mortgages are 1.1 percentage points above their all-time low set on Nov. 21, 2012, which translates into $125 more per month in mortgage payments on a $200,000 loan," said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist of Freddie Mac, in an Aug. 15 statement.Interest rates have not affected existing home sales yet, but another surge could put uncertainty in the minds of potential homebuyers and keep them from making a big purchase, McBride said."It's not the fact that necessarily rates are rising. It's the fact that they're going up as much as they have and you've had two relatively big surges in recent months," McBride said."When you see a big jump in rates it's actually more likely to cause people to put off a purchase than it is to spur them to buy. People don't want to make a decision under duress," he said. "We've got an economy that's growing very slowly to begin with, so when you're talking about an economy that's already growing slowly, that makes people nervous."After interest rates dropped to historic lows in 2012, a refinance boom followed last year. The cost to buy a new house, together with already low home prices depressed by the financial crisis, made purchasing a new home more affordable than ever.Pent-up demand for homes has prompted home prices to climb, returning some equity to homeowners.The next Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee meeting is Sept. 17 and 18. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is likely to address winding down the bond-buying, said Jim Russell, senior equity analyst of The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank, the bank's wealth management arm, based in Cincinnati."Home mortgage applications are lower now than they were a couple months ago and so the combination of home prices going up and the cost of getting a mortgage is now higher than it was a month or two ago. It takes home affordability down a notch or two," Russell said.The Associated Press contributed to this reportCopyright: ___ (c)2013 Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Visit the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) at .daytondailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉
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