Halfway through the year, more people have purchased homes in Butler County and paid higher prices for them than in the past several years. But a rise in foreclosure cases and sluggish economy continue to hamper the housing market’s recovery, experts said.

More than 1,780 total houses and condominiums sold during the first six months of this year in the county, according to statistics analyzed by the Middelown Journal/Hamilton JournalNews from Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati. That’s up about 15 percent from a year ago.

The average sales price was above $132,400, up just over one percent. The median price was $121,000, an increase of two percent, according to the realtors’ group.

But foreclosures filed with Butler County Clerk of Courts also rose year-over-year 16 percent to 1,316 cases, according to the clerks office.

“It’s all dependent on the job that they have. If they’ve lost their job or their hours are cut back because the employer is a little hesitant; they just don’t have the money coming in, they don’t feel that the money is reliably coming in, it could stop at anytime. That tends to make people more conservative with their money,” said David Marshall, assistant professor of finance at Miami University, who specializes in real estate.

The housing market is still weak because the overall economy is weak, said Tom Fitzpatrick, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. An “enormous” problem in Ohio cities is that there is far more housing than there is population growth, Fitzpatrick said.

“I think what we need to hope for, for a recovery, is more stability than a return to previous highs,” he said. “We either gain population or we reduce the supply of housing.”

HOME SALES

The most homes sold from January through June in Butler County were 337 houses in Hamilton, 282 houses in West Chester Twp., 243 in Middletown, 219 in Liberty Twp. and 212 in Monroe, according to the data from the Cincinnati MLS.

However, while sales in Hamilton and Middletown increased 21 percent and 7 percent from the same time in 2011, respectively, sales prices declined in the counties’ largest cities. The average sales price in Hamilton so far this year was $65,600, a six percent drop from the average sales price of $69,600 last year. Middletown’s average sales price through June this year was $65,176, a decline of more than three percent from the year before.

Those prices are the county’s lowest, except for Lemon and St. Clair townships.

Reily and Liberty townships’ average sales prices above $225,000 are the county’s highest, also according to the MLS.

“Most of them seem to be at the $100,000 or less in Middletown. That’s coming from people people buying HUD homes, buying foreclosured homes and flipping them and things like that,” said Doug Smith, chief executive officer and a real estate agent for Courtney Duff Companies in Middletown. “Anything above $100,000 we’re really still stalled in the activity.”

People are waiting for the general economy to change, he said. One of the big issues in the area is whether or not people can qualify for a loan.

“The economic circumstances here in Middletown were severely hampered a few years ago from the steel mill situation…then we got hit by the bad economy nationally. There is new investment here in Middletown, but it’s not coming quick enough,” Smith said.

FORECLOSURES

With 1,316 foreclosure cases filed so far this year in the county, compared to 1,130 the same time last year, the foreclosure crisis does not appear to be over.

Foreclosure cases filed with the court have ranged from 2,500 to 3,160 a year since 2009, putting Butler County at one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state.

The cause hasn’t changed much, said Bill Staler, chief executive officer of LifeSpan Inc., a nonprofit providing consumer credit and housing counseling services in Butler and Warren counties.

“Our housing counseling volume is still very high and when I say housing counseling, I’m talking about our mortgage delinquency, foreclosure prevention counseling. People are still requesting mortgage delinquency counseling and for the most part, the reasons for that haven’t changed—job loss, loss of unemployment,” Staler said. “While economic conditions are improving, they haven’t improved that much and they’re improving in areas that the pay rate for individuals doesn’t seem to be as high as it was.”

HOME BUILDERS

While building permits for single-family homes and condominiums have risen during the last six months to 210 permits issued, most of the construction is not happening in Hamilton and Middletown. Building permits are a sign of a house about to be built.

The housing subdivisions with the most activity in the county are Monroe Crossing, Knolls of Liberty Reserve in Liberty Twp. and Wyandot Woods in Monroe, according to NorthPointe Group Data Quest, a Cincinnati real estate firm that tracks permits for the Cincinnati builders association.