CLEVELAND, Ohio - Home sale prices across Cuyahoga County increased last year at a faster rate than at any time since the housing bust of 2008, with the median for single-family homes going up at least $15,000 in half of the county’s cities, villages and townships, and at least some in most other places.
Suburban prices overall were up 12.4% to $167,500 from $149,000 a year earlier, and the median selling price for single-family homes in Cleveland rose 19.1% to $56,500 from $47,500, a cleveland.com analysis found.
These latest gains mean that housing prices in the suburbs are now up 53.7% since they bottomed out post-bust at $109,000 in 2012, and in Cleveland are up 126.2% from $25,000 that same year, cleveland.com found in analyzing county property transfer records going back to 2007.
The overall median for the county, including both the city and the suburbs, was $140,000 last year. That’s up 12.4% from $123,500 in 2019, and up 68.7% from $83,000 in 2012. The analysis excluded sheriff’s sales and other small-dollar transactions of less than $1,000 to get a better idea of the normal buyer-seller market.
This price growth in 2020 came despite the economic upheaval of the pandemic, which likely took many potential buyers out of the market. The total number of sales dropped for the first time since 2011, though only slightly so.
Yet it was cheaper to borrow money last year than any time in at least a half-century, making it easier for many people to pay more for new homes.
Average mortgage rates nationally in late December of 2.66% for 30-year loans and 2.17% for 15-year loans were the lowest in 50 years of tracking by Freddie Mac. The average-30-year rate was below 3% each week since late July.
Read related story: $200,000-plus is now the norm for homes in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway, Ohio City and Tremont neighborhoods: see details for each Cleveland neighborhood
The median price for single-family homes was up in nearly every place in Cuyahoga County last year. Scroll to the bottom of this story to see sales summaries for each town for each of the last three years.Rich Exner, cleveland.com
The big gainers among cities, villages
Among the 44 places where there were at least 50 sales last year - enough to get a more reliable idea of the trends than where there were only a handful of transactions - 39 posted sales gains in 2019, ranging from inexpensive to expensive markets.
The median price was up at least $25,000 last year in 10 of these 44 places, led by Gates Mills (up $71,500 to $482,750), Moreland Hills (up $58,000 to $455,000), Rocky River (up $45,100 to $325,000), Brecksville (up $40,000 to $330,000) and Lakewood (up $37,250 to 234,250).
But, reflecting the wide extent of the price increase, some of the biggest gainers were also among the places hit hardest by the housing bust more than a decade ago.
The biggest gains by percent last year were in East Cleveland (up 36% to $17,000), Bedford (up 35% to $96,000), South Euclid (up 26.3% to $120,000), Maple Heights (up 20.8% to $64,000), Garfield Heights (up 19.2% to $71,500) and Cleveland (up 19.1% to $56,550).
The only four places with price drops in 2020 were coming off multiple years of increases - Orange (down 13.1% to $306,750), Highland Heights (down 9.9% to $250,000), Beachwood (down 4.7% to $323,900) and Olmsted Falls (down 0.7% to $192,000).
Steady gains
Last year marked the eighth consecutive year of increases for both the suburbs and Cleveland.
It wasn’t until 2018 that the suburban median finally got back to the pre-bust 2007 level of $138,500. The suburban median recovered to $139,000 in 2018, jumped to $149,000 in 2019 and finally to $167,700 in 2020.
It took until 2019 ($47,500) before Cleveland topped its 2007 median ($45,500).
In Euclid and Strongsville, the median price has gone up each of the last nine years, starting with a 2012 increase, longer than in any other place in the county.
Close behind, with increases each year starting with 2013 have been Brooklyn, Cleveland, Lakewood, Lyndhurst, Maple Heights, North Olmsted, Parma Heights and Strongsville.
Median home sales prices in 2020 exceeded $350,000 in several suburban Cuyahoga County cities and villages. Scroll to the bottom of this story to see sales summaries for each town for each of the last three years.Rich Exner, cleveland.com
Top dollar
The median price last year exceeded $300,000 in 10 of the 44 cities, villages and townships with at least 50 sales. The median was in the $200,000s for 11 places, in the $100,000s for 16 places and below $100,000 for the other seven.
These ranged from $482,750 in Gates Mills, $459,250 in Pepper Pike and $455,000 in Moreland Hills to $64,000 in Maple Heights, $56,550 in Cleveland and $17,000 in East Cleveland.
Yet Hunting Valley, regardless of the number of sales, clearly remains the most expensive place in the county. The median price on eight Hunting Valley home deals last year was $1,082,500.
Are the the median single-family home prices and number of sales for each Cuyahoga County community, according to a cleveland.com analysis of property records. Use the database in the story above to find the same information for each year going back to 2007.Rich Exner, cleveland.com
Rich Exner, data analysis editor, writes cleveland.com’s and The Plain Dealer’s personal finance column - That’s Rich! Follow on Twitter @RichExner.
Email questions and suggestions to rexner@cleveland.com. Include your hometown and first name for publication. And to help me sort through the clutter of my email box, try to remember including “That’s Rich!” in the subject of the email.
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