Cindi Andrews reports:
Heading into fall, local home sales are continuing their 27-month streak of year-over-year growth.
Cincinnati home sales were up 23 percent, at 1,964, in September compared a year ago, the Cincinnati Area Board of Realtors reported Monday. Prices have also increased 5.6 percent, to a median of $132,000.
Local home mortgage rates in September averaged 4.28 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, up from 3.43 percent a year ago.
The inventory of homes available for sale as of September 30 continued its year-over-year declining trend, down 8.9 percent, to 10,527, the Cincinnati board said. As of Monday, the Multiple Listing Service listed 10,491 homes for sale in Southwest Ohio.
This story will be updated with Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana sales numbers when they are available.
Nationwide, September home sales were up 10.7 percent from September 2012. The National Association of Realtors, which adjusts its numbers based on the season, reported September 2013 sales down 1.9 percent from August.
In other local housing news Monday:
• The three-state Cincinnati metropolitan area hit a four-year low for home foreclosures in August, according to a report released by the data collection company CoreLogic.
The foreclosure rate among outstanding mortgage loans was 2 percent, a decrease of 1 percentage points compared to August 2012 and lower than the national foreclosure rate of 2.36 percent for August 2013.
• Homebuilding for the first nine months of the year was up 36 percent vs. last year in Southwest Ohio, according to the Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati. Hamilton County led in growth, with a 49.6 percent increase in single-family home permits.
Hamilton issued 335 single-family permits through September, compared to 224 last year. Warren County continued to lead all southwest Ohio counties with 601 single-family permits, while Butler County issued 421 permits and Clermont County 283 permits.
