New home buyers lay claim on market
CHILLICOTHE – Tyler Congrove and his fiancee want to start their married lives together in a home that's conveniently located but large enough for a family to grow into.
Aaron Hawk and his girlfriend were looking for something in a nice neighborhood with a large back yard that their two children could enjoy.
They are among a new generation of first-time home buyers – a demographic that accounted for roughly a third of all home purchases nationwide during the month of May and claimed its largest share of the housing market since September 2012.
Bill Leib, of Exit First Capital Realty, said 14 of the business' 41 transactions in May involved first-time home buyers. He said the numbers make sense as the late spring and early summer period is the time of year students are graduating and marriage ceremonies are plentiful.
In addition, interest rates remain low, which is a draw for all home buyers, and with indications that they will start inching up later in the year, this is proving a popular time to buy.
According to numbers released recently by the Ohio Association of Realtors, home sales by the Scioto Valley Association of Realtors increased 10.2 percent in May over the same month in 2014 with an average sales price of $118,444. For the year to date, both number of sales and average sales price are up when compared to the first five months of 2014.
Leib said younger, first-time buyers have a good idea what they are looking for.
"The feature they like best is basically some room," he said. "They do not want to be crowded together, and a good-size yard and good-sized rooms attract this generation. While they don't mind some cosmetic work on a home, they are generally not looking for a total fixer-upper."
Congrove, 24, said his decision to purchase came with an eye on the future.
"I finally graduated college and got a year under my belt working at Adena as a registered nurse so I saved up enough money and thought it was time now to get a house – plus I'm getting married next year," said Congrove, who has lived with his parents while going through his Wright State University program at the Paccar Medical Education Center at Adena and through his first year of work.
A member of the Scioto Township EMS squad, Congrove was looking for something close enough to the station to help with a quick response. Even armed with that focus, he and his bride-to-be shopped around, examining houses that one would like but not the other until they finally went through one that just said home to both of them.
"I was looking for something that would be mid-sized, bigger end – I didn't want anything really small just in case later down the road I would have a family and would have to move out because we would outgrow it," he said. "I also wanted something that had a nice back yard."
Hawk, turning 25 later this month, agreed that shopping around is a wise move, noting that some of the homes they went through were not in very presentable shape when put on the market. The neighborhood around the Edgewood Drive home they decided to purchase was what really sold them on their new home.
The City of Chillicothe employee said the decision to buy had been coming for some time.
"I just wanted something of my own," Hawk said. "I was tired of living under somebody else's rules and paying them to live under their rules. We have two kids and we were looking for a nice neighborhood and a big back yard – everything you would ideally want for somebody with kids."
Leib, who recently returned from a master broker summit in Dallas featuring some of the most influential real estate people in the industry, said the belief is that first-time home buyers will claim a growing share of the housing market and that the industry will literally have to deliver that market into their hands.
"This generation needs to have information on their portable devices," he said. "Ninety-four percent of them go to the Internet to search homes and mainly with phones and tablets. If you don't have this format, they won't even bother with you."