The Real Estate Outlook in St. Marys By SKYLER MITCHELL

Associate Editor

St. Marys is constantly growing, and with the families either moving in or expanding outward, this causes a need for housing. However, like many other businesses in the city, real estate is under a constant flux of change.

Bonnie Marlow of Cisco Realty has been working within the city since February of 2017, and has been running Cisco Realty since buying the business since 2019. The past six years has given her a unique insight into how real estate dealings have changed, whether due to international or more local factors.

“Mostly I deal with residential real estate, little bit of commercial, but mostly residential,” said Marlow as being her expertise. “Definitely over the last couple of years, there’s been a lower inventory of houses nationwide, and we’ve definitely seen that here in St. Marys where’s there’s been more buyers and sellers.”

Marlow also notes that there has been a rise in prices over the last couple of years, with the rates only having stabilized quite recently. Interest rates have also been following this trend too, with rates rising and eventually tapering off into stability.

“That’s really brining the buyers back out,” stated Marlow. Whether this is due to recent trends involving prices and interest rates or timelier factor, though, is hard to say. “Plus the holidays are over, we’re getting into the new year.”

Ultimately, the original problem of supply being much less than demand is Marlow believes caused the rise in costs and interest rates. There is plenty of competition out there for houses on the market, especially for more in-demand properties. “It’s a good thing because we have people that want to

live here and we just need more housing,” said Marlow. The situation with rental property is not exactly fixing the issue either, with high demand for that as well. “We have people looking for rentals everyday, and more buyers than we have sellers.”

There was a note about affordable housing that Marlow mentioned, with the property that is on sale right now being mostly high in price. This also goes for rental properties, with rent having risen alongside buying property outright.

“I don’t really know if the rental properties have really played into the housing prices, but I think the fact that housing prices have gone up have allowed landlords to charge more rent,” said Marlow. “There are a lot of people looking for rentals, I get a lot of calls looking for rentals.”

This has bred an environment where people are buying and selling the few properties on the market quickly, with some only lasting for the span of a few days.

”Properties were going in sometimes hours. It’s slowed down a little bit, where sometimes we’re seeing properties sit a couple of weeks,” said Marlow. “And depending on the price range, houses that are more expensive, they will sit longer because there’s not as many people that can afford those.”

Marlow sees the immediate future as being rates and prices still holding steady if current trends continue, though that could change if more affordable housing was available. As long as supply is consistently below demand, the situation is not likely to change any time soon.

”That’s the area I think people need to focus on if they are going to build or do any development is affordable,” stated Marlow. “Really, $100,000 to $200,000 is where most people are looking to buy.”

Marlow encourages people to looking to buy to start doing the approval process now and find a realtor they can trust to get in to a good deal as soon as possible. The market may remain competitive for a while depending on how the future changes the business.