This is something I go back and forth on quite a bit.  Why use zip codes at all? It’s a rant I’ve posted about before. Zip codes are arbitrary and mean little and yet they can reveal a lot about a part of town.

That’s the key, a part of town, an area of the Greater Columbus Mega Picture.  Let’s face it though, if you want to buy a house in Bexley, you don’t really care how many homes are for sale in Berwick. Same with the Short  North. If you want to be where the action is, do you care about Harrison West? Of course you do, but you don’t care what’s happening in Milo Grogan and yet they all share the  same zip code. On the flip side, What if you DO want to buy in an up and coming area, you still want to keep track of the “better” areas surrounding to make sure your investment will continue to appreciate.

And yet, is it wise to completely ignore real estate trends in the areas immediately surrounding the location you plan to plunk down hundreds of thousands of dollars? Probably you should be aware of what is happening in Merion Village even if you strictly want to buy a home in German Village.

My solution? Quartiles. Divide the market into FOUR median price points and follow what is happening in the area you want to buy in. It’s the bigger picture you’re getting now.  Say you want 43202 because you’ve really got a thing for south Clintonville. Great. Those price points are not too far apart and you can more easily see what’s going on in the entire market by looking at trends across all quartiles.

Just because Grandview and Marble Cliff have one zip code dosesn’t mean there is one high end market in Grandview.  What’s going on with first time home buyer homes in Grandview? What’s going on in the higher end Grandview and Marblecliff Single family markets and everything in between.

Zip Code Quartiles, try them out and see what you think. I’m doing the same thing.  If you only want to know what is happening between streets X and Y bounded by streets A and B, I can do that too, let me know and I’ll set you up on a custom search using hand drawn polygons — that’s still my favorite defining partition, not zip codes. They’re arbitrary.