Cleveland-area home buyers have far more choice this fall, and asking prices have held steady while they fall in much of the country. Active listings in the Cleveland metro rose 21.5% from a year earlier in October, according to Realtor.com’s October housing report, nearly three times the national increase of 7.4%. The median asking price held at $259,900, unchanged on the year. Nationally, asking prices fell 2.2%.

Sellers are still bringing homes to market, too. New listings in the Cleveland area rose 2.3% on the year, while they fell 7.5% nationally. Homes also took a median three days longer to sell than a year ago, and 22.5% of listings carried a price cut, up 1.2 percentage points.

Sale prices, meanwhile, rose strongly over the summer. The median price of an existing single-family home in the Cleveland area rose 8.6% in the third quarter from a year earlier, the seventh-largest gain among large US metros, the National Association of Realtors reported on Oct. 29. Prices nationally rose 1.7%. “Many markets in the Midwest offer exceptional value with more affordable homes, making homeownership more attainable,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

The two figures measure different things. Realtor.com tracks what sellers are asking, and NAR tracks what buyers paid. Together they describe a market where values have risen, but buyers now have more homes to compare, more time to decide and more room to negotiate on condition and renovation quality.

That matters as the national market cools. Buyers are stepping back “as higher mortgage rates cut into their buying power,” said Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale. Cleveland’s median asking price is about $155,000 below the national median of $415,000.

Capstone 72 renovates homes across the Cleveland area and sells them to buyers as rental properties. To see the homes we have available, contact our team.