Columbus Housing Market Update – New Fed Governor, Gas Prices & Buyer Opportunities

The Sell for 1 Percent team breaks down the Columbus real estate market on June 17th, 2026 — the same day new Fed Governor Kevin Warsh holds his first news conference. Rich Cercone covers a Middle East peace deal driving crude oil down while mortgage rates hold steady, and Dave shares his adventures paying $6.19/gallon for premium gas. On the housing side, Jaysen notes pending sales remain strong year-over-year with median prices up, while competitively priced listings are pulling 3-4 offers in days. Jaime highlights that condition is king for buyers — updated, move-in ready homes see multiple offers and even appraisal gaps, while dated properties need aggressive pricing to compete in today’s balanced market.

#SellFor1Percent #ColumbusRealEstate #MortgageRates #HomeBuying #OhioRealEstate

Full Transcript

Hello there, everybody. Hello, Jaime. Jaime with Self for 1 Percent Realtors, joined, as usual, by the gang, Jaysen Barlow and Dave Barlow.

Somebody’s filling their oats this morning. We have Rich Cercone at Highlands Mortgage to go over. It is June 17, 2026.

We’re going to go over the local Columbus market, I guess, in general. Mortgage interest rates and kind of what’s going on in the market. It sounds like there is a Pease deal that’s being hammered out in the Middle East.

So, I don’t know if that’s had immediate effects or what’s going on with that, Rich. What do you got for us? Yeah, this is not one of those boring days, that’s for sure. We’ve got Pease in the Middle East being propagated, and we hope that holds.

That has driven down the price of crude oil. Dave, later on, can give you an update on top-tier gasoline prices. But the other thing that’s happening today is this is the first news conference and Fed meeting for the new Fed governor, Kevin Warsh.

We’re hoping he’s going to warsh the markets into – warsh is a Pittsburgh term, by the way, when you warsh your clothes. But let’s hope he warshes the market and brings us lower rates. We don’t know, but it’ll be interesting to see what he has to say about his sentiment going forward.

I don’t think anybody expects him to lower rates today, although that would be a huge surprise. But they are interested to find out what he thinks the near future looks like with the markets, with a Pease deal, and with his new mandate from President Trump. He was hand-picked by Trump, so Trump wants lower interest rates.

So maybe we’ll hear some good things today, but that’s all to be determined, and we’ll have an update for you next week on that part of it. Sounds good, yeah. The whole world is starting to come back to sanity.

Gas prices are down to about $1.89 a gallon right now, so that’s a good thing. Not so fast, my friends. I just keep filling up on the wrong day, I guess.

It’s insane. One of the things that your mother hates the worst is that I’m always riding around on empty. A lot of things that mother hates, but yeah, that’s one of them.

You’ve got 78 miles left, and so we had an appointment yesterday that we were headed to, and it’s 22 miles away, and I’ve got 81 miles of gas left. And she’s like, well, we can’t stop. Do you think we can make it? Where are you not seeing the correlation in 81 versus 22? We can get down there and get back without any problems.

So she sat very quietly. We got to the appointment. On the way back, I had to get gas.

And the only place that I could get gas without going way out of my way are the two gas stations down there at the bottom of Worthington Hills on 315, which, of course, are the highest-priced gas stations, I think, in the state. Downtown Columbus sucks. Let me tell you that.

It’s crazy. The gas was there. I had a choice between the Shell and Marathon, which are both top-tier gas.

I’d go Shell, personally, buddy. Well, Marathon, the sign was kind of hidden behind a tree, was $4.59 a gallon. The Shell was $4.49 a gallon.

So I pulled into the Shell, thinking I’m going to save $0.10 a gallon. So I get out. I have to run high test in my car.

And the V, whatever it’s called there, is normally high test is $1 more than the regular. So I’m expecting to pay $5.59 or $5.49 a gallon. I get out of my car to do the fill-up.

$6.19. Oh, I should have gone to Marathon. You thought maybe you got transported to California.

You don’t want that dunking your engine up, buddy. You stayed at Shell. Oh, boy.

Oh, yeah, because you got all the super-special added to it. It’s not only top-tier, it’s top-top-tier. I think that’s what the race car clubs around Columbus always fill up at Shell’s.

They put in their exotic cars when they race around 270, and I can hear them from 20 miles away at night. So one of my theories is when I had to pay premium price, I only fill up to a half tank, which is part of the reason why I’m always on empty. I’m sure Maria likes that part of it, too.

But the reasoning is that hauling around another 15 gallons of gas lowers your gas mileage. Do you people see what I have to deal with at family dinners and the discussions that have to be had that I have no choice but to have? So I got a half a tank, and your mom, she’s like, how much do you think you’re going to save per mile by not going full? It calculates. It all adds up.

So I did get gas. I had 300 miles to empty after my half tank. And so I said, we should be able to make it home.

I don’t know if you’ve seen that clip of Shaquille O’Neal. This is Shaquille O’Neal logic where he’s talking about that he pays less for gas because he fills up when he gets to a half tank every time. So you should do the opposite.

Do not stress out your wife. Fill it up all the way. When you get to a half tank, fill up half a tank.

But you don’t want to carry around this extra weight. You’re nuts. Yeah, you don’t want to carry around the extra weight.

It’s like carrying around two or three extra people. It lowers your cost per mile. So and then every once in a while when the gas is really low, then I’ll get a full tank.

And then she’s like, well, why do you get a full tank? Well, because it was a good price. I could offset the extra weight with the better price. Yeah.

So there you go. Yep. Great.

So I’m waiting for gas to get back down to a buck eighty nine. And then I’ll go fill up my 55 gallon barrel because it’s about half. Yeah.

Dad’s like a terrorist. He’s got barrels of gasoline stored somewhere. He’s you’re insane.

All right. Back to real estate. Yeah.

Let’s get back to real estate. That’s your that’s your weekly gas update. Brought to you by Shell.

The pending home sales are six dollars and nineteen dollars a gallon. The pending home sales are down from last week. We are still way above where we were this time last year.

And so homes are continuing to sell pretty strongly right now here in June, despite the six dollar gasoline and days premium vehicle. And the medium prices are above where they were last year. So prices are strong.

Pending sales are strong. Inventories down slightly. We’re at five thousand one hundred and ninety nine this week.

Although I will say on the last couple of videos, we’ve been updating these on Thursday and Thursday is kind of the major day for new listings. So I would suspect tomorrow this number will eclipse where we were last week slightly. I don’t know if you guys if you’re in if you’re watching this in the market when I say watch that you’re watching home sales and you’re actively in the market.

Thursday is always a day when the most number of listings hit before the end. And so just, you know, I expect that number to climb. Antidotally, I mean, what I’m seeing is on my listings that come out of the gate priced well.

And I’ve had a couple sellers here where they’re like, yeah, let’s be a little aggressive on price. Most sellers, they, they want to reach and they want to try for the absolute most. And then I’ve got two of them recently that has said, yeah, let’s let’s be a little aggressive.

Let’s price it a little bit under what we think. Both of those have gone with three, four plus offers in two, three days. It’s amazing.

And the one that came on that was reaching, I’ve had zero showings in a week on it. So it’s all pricing, you know? And I, I feel silly saying the same thing to my clients, you know, every week, but it’s like, if you’re not selling, it’s pure price related and I know you want to try it for the most. And, you know, a lot of these, they do pop, you know, after a certain amount of days.

So you’re playing, you’re playing a lot of different, there’s a lot of different factors that come into it. And I won’t go on and on, but if you want a quick sale, price it five, 10,000 under what’s been selling, and you’re going to have a much better experience. Now, if you want to push it, that’s cool.

But just plan on taking, you know, three weeks, four weeks. The one other stat before I hand it over to Jaime on the buyer side is looking at the days on market in Columbus, the in breaking the market into four equal segments on price. So like the, the top 25% of the listings price wise, those are selling pretty quickly right now.

When I say quickly, three weeks or less on, on average, the ones in the bottom quarter. So like $200,000 and under those homes are taking the longest to sell right now. And so, and we’ve talked about this before, the people in the luxury market, they are not as impacted by gas prices or the economy as the first time home buyers are.

And so normally you would see, well, homes that are a hundred thousand dollars are selling super quick. That’s not the case right now. Homes that are priced like an Olin Tangy schools, $500,000.

They’re selling in like a week, but the home that’s in the Hilltop right now on the West side of Columbus, that’s one 75 and you got 60 other homes for sale. Those are taking a long time to sell. So it really depends on how, what segment of the market you’re in as a seller or a buyer as well.

Jaime runs ski. Let me just real quick before Jaime jumps in there. I had a, when I got into real estate, I had a lot of sales background, marketing background, business background, but I did not have much in the way of real estate background.

And I came out of the gates. Great had, you know, within the first three, four months had, you know, eight, 10 listings was setting the world on fire. But then all of a sudden I started, being a phone calls to the office manager, Joanne Hall, that Dave took the listing and never heard from him again.

And Joanne was smart enough to assign me a mentor by the name of Dick Henry. And I just, Dick was an old Welshman, him and my dad got along famously because of that. Welsh connection.

But I remember Henry and he was an old sales guy. He had owned a trucking company and I remember him, you know, sitting down with him and talking about everything. And he told to me, and it, and it sticks in my head to this day, 27 years later.

And he was kind of a gruff guy and he’s a Barlow. The only reason a house doesn’t sell is because of price. You get the price, right? It’ll sell.

And what you were just saying there, Jay made me think of that, that it’s still true today. You know, my example I give sellers is, you know, if your house, you know, saying it’s worth 500 gram and you want five 50, it’s, it’s probably going to sit a little bit, but if you want three 50, how fast do you think it’s going to sell? And so, you know, the equation, very simply, the, the more competitively price you make your home, the faster it sell. And then in many cases, like what you just mentioned as well, you are going to get multiple offers.

And I’ve had the same exact experience when, when they price it to what I think it’s worth, we’re getting two, three offers and we are getting little bidding wars. You know, they’re not going for 50, 60, 80,000 overpriced like they were back during COVID. But I am seeing, you know, a house is being overpriced by a bidded up five, 10.

I just closed one 15,000 over the asking price. And, the asking price was three 50, you know, sold for three 65. So, you know, get it priced right is the point.

Jay, I’ll give it back to you to introduce your younger, more handsome brother. Oh, Jim Ronski looks so happy to be here right now. What do you got on the buy side, I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, kind of, it’s funny on the, you guys, you know, giving the advice on the sell side on the buy side, it’s kind of, you know, it’s going to be the same kind of, you know, where I think pricing is, the most important thing for a, a, a property on the buy side, buyers are looking at condition.

And so, I mean, if your house has a bunch of projects that need, you know, done, like your kitchen isn’t updated or your bathrooms aren’t updated, you got issues there where those are, you know, 15, $20,000 projects, minimum. You know, that’s going to, that’s going to affect the pricing as well. And so you might be in line with a few of the comps, but those comparable sales, those properties have updated bathrooms and updated kitchens.

Buyers aren’t going to, you know, be pulling the trigger on that, but then, you know, they walk through a house that is updated, you know, flooring, you know, gleaming hardwood floors and updated kitchens, updated bathrooms. And, you know, when a buyer walks through a house, like, yeah, this is a nice house. Well, other buyers are thinking that as well.

Other buyers are getting that same sort of impression. And so that’s where I see the multiple offers coming in and buyers having to compete if they want the house. and I, you know, recently here in Worthington and in Dublin, seeing things that, you know, may require an appraisal gap, which I haven’t seen in a little while.

But I think that’s the summer market. And again, that’s a, those are properties, I think that are, are well updated and positioned well, you know, price wise as well for the market. If you need flooring, your kitchen has old cabinets, old fixtures, your bathroom, you know, needs updating.

You’re going to probably have to get a little more aggressive on price to, to find yourself a buyer. So, but then the ones, like I said, that are, that are moving, ready turnkey, ready to go. Those are seeing multiple offers.

yeah, I mean, I agree with you on, on pricing a hundred percent. That’s always what it comes down to. Condition is playing a, a bigger role at the moment right now.

I think with the amount of listings that are out there and available, you know, buyers, buyers want a house in good condition. So that is what I’m seeing. The good thing, right? I think we’re, we’re seeing a little bit of a balanced market.

Maybe it’s a healthy market for sure. Yeah. I don’t think that it’s a seller’s market that, you know, sellers can make all kinds of demands.

I don’t think it’s a buyer’s market where the buyers are like, you know, if you want to sell a house, you’ll do it for 25,000. I think that it’s a little more balanced. Yeah.

It might be just a hair on the seller side, but I think buyers are taking attack and Jaime, you can tell me this right or not, but I think buyers, if it’s not the right fit, they’re not forcing it. They’re being a little more choosy about what they’re looking at and what they’re willing to put their money down on. you know, sellers, you know, we’re not able to sell the house with, you know, green flock wallpaper, you know, shag carpeting hasn’t been updated for maximum price.

What you got going on in my opinion is with the buyers, like I’m looking right now and what’s crazy is, you know, in Columbus, when I first started, you know, 2005, I mean, my average sales price is $104,000. And, you know, today homes are selling, everything is selling 400,000 plus it seems, you know, so on the $350,000 house with 3.5% down. So like an FHA loan, when you add in taxes, PMI insurance, that’s a $2,888 payment.

So on a, on a three 50 house, you’re paying almost $3,000 a month. You know, that’s a decent amount of money for a entry level home. And I, I, my opinion is unless it’s the perfect buyer that needs that neighborhood it’s next to grandma’s house, or I grew up there or, I’m handy and I can do this stuff myself.

Or my, my uncle does flooring and he can change it. You’re trying to thread the needle because you can’t expect the buyer to walk in, put down 15 grand pay $3,000 a month and have to instantly put $50,000 into the house and updates. So that’s where you start running into this friction and every buyer, when you get into the fixer upper world, every seller wants to know what’s it worth as is.

And until you put it out there, that’s a really hard call to make because what I just said, some buyers are going to come in and Hey, I’m handy. I can do this myself. It’s going to cost me $10,000 to fix this house up.

Other people are going to walk in with their realtor and have no concept on what stuff costs. Oh, this is $80,000 worth of work. This house isn’t worth that.

And so you get this big swing in how buyers perceive a house when it, when it needs work. Um, you know, so it’s, it’s condition affects price. It’s all pricing.

If that house at four 25, then that needs to proceed $50,000 worth of work. Well, if it’s three 75, it’ll sell, but at four 25, it’s going to sit. And again, that’s because, you know, you’re paying $4,000 a month and I got to put money into it.

It becomes a problem. And that’s something that sellers really need to look at is what’s the monthly payment because a lot of these sellers have a 3% interest rate and they’re paying $1,500 a month. Right.

And they don’t really get that. So that’s where we, you know, as the professionals try and guide you guys, um, does anybody got anything else to add before I wrap her up? Wrap it up. If you like this video, Rich is ready to go.

Make sure you ring the bell, like, and subscribe guys and leave a comment below. Jaime reads all the comments. He takes them all very personally and he will respond and get back to you instantly with real estate knowledge.

If you need to buy, give Jaime a call. You need to sell. Give me a call.

If you want to complain about me or Jaime, call dad. He’ll, he takes all the complaints and is always thrilled to hear the complaints. And then if you need a mortgage, refi, give Rich a call.

Thanks for watching. Have a great day guys. We’ll see you next week.

Make sure you wash behind your ears when you shower tonight.