What should you look out for when buying an Older Columbus Home? Everything.

Written by: Joe Peffer

Take care of your old home and it will take care of you.

I love homes with character. They don’t have to be built in 1886, like my own home, but they have to have something that says love, attention, detail and thought went into the building or rehab of the home.

Since I often work inside the Outerbelt, in Columbus’ older neighborhoods and first-ring suburbs, most of my buyers purchase old homes -be it in German Village, the Short North, Bexley, Olde Towne East, Grandview or Worthington-each home has it’s own issues and every older home has a set of items to look out for.

My Friend Richard Taylor, Principle of Richard Taylor Architects in Dublin, Ohio, posted about an experience he had with a new owner of an older home and her concern over her door sticking and subsequent floor settling.

He noted that, “Problems in older homes are often well hidden. More often than not, serious damage doesn’t show any symptoms until the damage is significant and expensive. There are clues, but even trained eyes sometimes have difficulty telling normal wear and tear from the signs of serious underlying problems.

 Most old-home problems, however, have predictable causes and if you know where to look you can find hints that might lead you to discover concealed damage. Find the problems early enough and you might be able to fix them relatively easily, or keep yourself from buying into unexpected expensive repairs.”

Read the rest of Richard’s post here and learn the cause of that sticky door as well as a few things to look out for when purchasing your next home.

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Columbus Board of Realtors says final 2010 numbers show improvement

Written by: Joe Peffer

Stats_2010Residentialchart Home sales statistics for central Ohio in 2010 showed marked improvements compared to previous years according to the Columbus Board of REALTORS® (CBR).  This is their press release…

The average sale price of a home in 2010 was $158,893, just 0.6 percent lower than the average price of homes sold in 2009. However, the average price of homes sold in 2009 was 2.4 percent lower than 2008 which was 5.1 percent lower than 2007.

“Our market saw average sale price increases for eight of the 12 months of 2010,” says CBR’s 2011 President Rick Benjamin. “As we’ve experienced annual decreases in our average sale price since 2005, we see ending the year just half a point lower than 2009 as a positive for central Ohio homeowners.”

The 1,460 homes sold in December 2010 is just 0.3 percent lower than the number of homes sold in December of 2009. Annual 2010 home sales (19,676) finished 2.8 percent behind 2009 (20,235).

“There’s no question the home buyer tax credits had a significant affect on last year’s home sales,” adds Benjamin. “Providing home buyers with a substantial monetary incentive really helped to energize the market in the first half of 2010.”

“Homes in contract (which are expected to close in January or February) are up slightly from the previous year suggesting that home sales in the first of the year could be strong.”

Homes spent an average of 90 days on the market, a reduction of seven days from the average time to sell a home in 2009.

In December 2010, the month’s supply of homes was down to 9.93, the lowest since last June. Month’s supply is the ratio of inventory to sales which takes into account both supply and demand. A healthy market has a 6.5 to 7-month supply of homes, meaning if no new homes were added to the market, it would take about 6.5 or 7 months to sell all the available homes.

The Columbus Board of REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service (MLS) serves all of Franklin, Delaware, Fayette, Madison, Morrow, Pickaway and Union Counties and parts of Champaign, Clark, Fairfield, Hocking, Knox, Licking, Logan, Marion, Muskingham, Perry and Ross Counties.

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2011 Columbus Real Estate Preview

Written by: Joe Peffer

In case you missed it, read my 2011 Columbus Real Estate Preview posted on Columbus Underground.

“Long neglected neighborhoods close to downtown will ever-so-slowly begin to be seen as good places to buy a home: The King Lincoln District, Franklinton, East and South of Children’s Hospital, Milo Grogan and Weinland Park will begin to be thought of as more than viable places to live.  The injection of private and public funds combined with >$3.00/gallon gasoline and the playing out of local housing and development policy combined with that age old mantra of real estate sales- location, location, location- will form a perfect storm of sorts where affordability, location and civic pride will intersect.”

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Are Columbus homes for sale undervalued by 16% ?

Written by: Joe Peffer

CNN Money seems to think so. In an article out today, the online financial magazine called the Las Vegas housing market simultaneously the most undervalued in the nation and one of the worst housing buys.

FIVE Ohio Cities made the list of the top 15 Under Valued Cities in the Country — Akron and Cleveland came in at #’s 2 and 3 respectively while slots 9, 13, and 15 belonged to Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati.

Columbus, which they list with a median house price of $186,228, came in at 16% undervalued-technically tied for 7th place on the list behind Memphis Tennessee and in front of Detroit.

The most over-valued housing market in America? Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., at 26% overvalued followed by Los Angeles and Portland.

Are looking for a good deal in Columbus? Let us know.

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