Nation wide it seems like the drop in home values is slowing. According to a recent Standards and Poors report on home values, 18 of the 20 index cities lost less value over th last quarter than in previous quarters.

In looking at the chart the most critical piece of information I see is data out of Cleveland and Chicago. Both large mid western centers show a significant slowing in depreciation compared with previous quarters and in aggregate if you look at those as leading indicators for the region our decline may be slowing as well. We have reported before on Cincinnati real estate price trends and this is another report that makes us confident that the overall depreciation will most likely end with the calendar year especially if the summer sales season sees absorption of some of the foreclosed properties currently on the market.

With gas prices skyrocketing, how do you know where to get the least expensive gas? MSN has a new tool to assist you with which zip codes in your area have the cheapest gas.

Spring time in Cincinnati, depending on the year, is also Cicada time. Mt. St Joseph University has a map tool that is allowing community members to report where they see Cicadas. Looking at the map it is interesting to see the clustering around certain areas such as Loveland, Indian Hill, and Mariemont..

The University benefits because as the community sends in Cicada sightings they gather useful data in their research. We benefit because we know when it is time to cover up our new bushes and trees to protect them. Be a part of the community and report your Cicada sightings.

Everyone I know has been asking us “So how is the market doing … really.” The honest answer is that it is not as bad in Cincinnati as other place but of course, we would like it to be better. When we pulled up numbers and took a statistical look at both sale price and units sold the number show a decline, but not the catastrophic drop some other parts of the country have seen.

Hamilton County saw a decrease in sales of 14% (3137 to 2697) in the first five months of 2008 compared to the first five months of 2007. In the same time period sale price fell slightly by 11% ($169,617 to $152,360). The challenging part about these numbers, particularly the sale price is that there are so many bank owned homes being sold now at a fraction of their market value. With fewer overall sold properties, the higher volume of bank sales is having a greater impact on the average sale price in Hamilton County.

Each year Newsweek puts out a list in the spring of its top 1300 public schools. This year 5 Cincinnati area public schools made it into the top half of that list. Sycamore (585), Mariemont (449), Indian Hill (120), Wyoming (87) and Walnut Hills (56) are excellent examples of the high quality public education available across greater Cincinnati.

In a recent release the Seven Hills Sinfonietta will be playing their summer concert at Walnut Hills High School Sunday June 1st at 2:00 pm. The concert will feature Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture and Beethoven’s complete Symphony No. 4. In addition, the concert will feature special guest Jennifer Higgins Wheatley performing the Elgar Cello Concerto.

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As always, concert admission is free to the general public. The Seven Hills Sinfonietta was founded in 1974 as the Strings Plus Chamber Music Society. Currently comprised of nearly 50 dedicated, skilled musicians living in the greater Cincinnati area, the Seven Hills Sinfonietta is the area’s only community chamber orchestra.

The city of Mason is seeing what seems to be a recovery in their housing market. In Real Estate everything is local and we are hopeful that this suburb is an indicator of things to come for the spring and summer housing market. Within the school district more single family and condo listings are coming on the market. Even more encouraging is that pending sales have increased as well. A second factor to be positive about is the sale price of the homes is on the rise.

Data from Greater Cincinnati Multiple Listing Service

By far the best explanation I’ve heard of the Housing Mortage/Credit Crisis is — improbably — a podcast from the motherlode of story-telling on NPR, This American Life. This podcast is a bit different from their usual slice-o-life stories in that they try to explain something extremely complex and abstract — through personal stories.

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The episode is called The Giant Pool of Money and it’s worth at least an hour of your time on your next commute. Hearing the agents all along the “chain” of events describe what they thinking in their own words is about 100 times better than reading about it.

According to Cincinnati.com, on the week of May 19, 2008, Southwest Ohio can expect about 5 billion cicadas to emerge from the ground. A majority of the cicadas will be found south of I-275 and west of I-71.

** UPDATE - Check out the Cicada Mapping Tool! **

Treenotes reports that the cicadas have been underground, sucking sap from tree roots for the last 17 years, and they will be emerging to mate, not feed. However, female cicadas will cut slits in small branches and lay eggs in the wounds. This will often cause the end of the branch to die. On a large, healthy tree, the damage won’t be life threatening, but it could injure a small tree seriously. So be sure to cover young tree branches and leaves with cheese cloth which can be found at any hardware store, nursery, or home improvement store to protect them from damage.

Cicadas aren’t poisonous. However, keep an eye on any person or animal (small children, cats, dogs, etc.) that might be tempted to gorge themselves on the bugs so that they don’t choke or eat so many they become sick. Cicadas may fly into or land on you, but they do not sting or bite. If you hold one for a long time and it decides you are a tree, it may try to feed on you.

The adult cicadas should all die off by mid-June. Then in about a month, the eggs they’ve laid (about 400 for each female) in tree branches will hatch, and their offspring will fall to the ground, where they’ll dig in for the next 17 year cycle in 2021.

CNN Money posted a report on the projected home value changes over the next 18 months. The news for all of Ohio is about the same; CNN Money thinks we will lose about 5% of our home value across the state in 2008 and that the market will stabilize with less than 1% value loss in 2009.

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What this mean to the average house hunter is that if you are looking to move up market, this is the time to do it! The numbers support this idea and here is an example:

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You are moving from your $150,000 house to a $250,000 house. That is a $100,000 jump. If you sell for 5% less ($142,500) and buy for 5% less ($237,500) you have a $95,000 jump. With the same houses, you will have a $5,000 savings by moving up in a down market. Further savings come into play when property taxes are assessed at the 5% lower price.