By BOBBY WARREN

Staff Writer

WOOSTER — Anyone remotely interested in buying a home should be looking at the inventory available.

“It’s a buyer’s market. For a buyer right now, they should be out looking,” said Jim Hand, president of the Wayne-Holmes Realtor Association and a Realtor with RE/MAX Showcase.

The number of listings in the two-county region are starting to rise. The 233 properties listed in May, the last month for which there are figures, are 22.6 percent higher than April’s and nearly 10 percent higher than those listed in May 2010, according to WHRA statistics.

Mary Ann Stumbo, immediate past president of the group and a Realtor with Real Estate Showcase in Holmes County, said she has seen a lot of activity since November. “The contracts are coming in, there are lots of traffic and lots of potential buyers.”

Once schools finish for the year, the number of houses on the market trends upward, Hand said, adding he thinks people are starting to show a little faith in the economy.

“They might be thinking it’s time to sell,” Hand said. “It’s still a buyer’s market; prices are down.”

For all property types, the average sale price in May was $104,800, which was less than the $106,400 average sale price in May 2010 and the $105,800 average for all of 2010. But the May average is higher than the $103,900 average for all sales so far this year.

Those who have been looking for homes, whether to live or invest in, are taking a lot more time and are looking for bargains, Hand said.

While prices might be right, it can be tougher to get a loan because of appraisal values, both Hand and Stumbo said.

“It’s not that the value is not there,” Stumbo said, noting foreclosures and comparable properties are having an effect.

“It almost seems like they are trying to bring prices on homes down,” Hand said. “Some appraisers from outside of the area don’t understand this market.”

Doug Leedy, who has been a Realtor, bank appraiser and now an independent, fee-based appraiser, agreed that appraisers from the Cleveland and Akron areas who don’t know the area can create problems. He refers to it as “geographic competence.”

“We didn’t have the bubble a lot of other areas did,” Leedy said. “This area is a pretty conservative area, and most people tend to be conservative in their financial dealings. They typically do not go out and mortgage to the hilt or pay what someone is asking.”

“Other areas were more depressed,” Hand said. “Wayne County is its own little niche. We don’t get hit as hard, but we don’t recover as fast.”

As for what Hand and Stumbo see as lower values, Leedy said appraisers do not set the market, rather they reflect it. There are also a number of variables that might be unknown to appraisers that can skew values.

As an example, Leedy said a buyer agrees to pay a seller $100,000 for the home based on a condition the seller return $5,000 to the buyer to pay for closing costs.

“Did the buyer pay $100,000 or $95,000 for that home,” Leedy asked.

Appraisals are opinions of value based on data pulled from the market, Leedy said. When the information is limited, incomplete or conflicting, it makes it difficult to pinpoint a true value. Where there was once a very tight range in the appraisal value of a home, it is now much broader, he said.

“The pendulum always swings too far,” Leedy said. Previously, it was too easy to get a loan, and now he said it is too difficult.

But, if people can qualify, the interest rates are better than anyone in real estate would have imagined, Hand said. The rates have been running around 4 percent.

Hand’s advice to purchases is to buy now while those interest rates are “phenomenal.”

“I’m optimistic,” Hand said about the market, adding houses that are priced right sell quickly.

Reporter Bobby Warren can be reached at 330-287-1639 or bwarren@the-daily-record.com. He’s @BobbyWarrenTDR on Twitter.