This 2 bed, 1 bath 1076 sf Hanford St. Condo sold last week for $172,000

This update includes some of the near South – specifically Schumacher Place and Merion Village

Homes on the market: 97 Greater Schumacher Place and Merion Village Homes and Condos for sale today

• $177,474
• 1424 sf
• $126/sf and
• 140 days on market

Greater Schumacher Place and Merion Village Homes in contract with escape clauses:

None, There are no homes you could still, conceivably, swoop in and buy

Schumacher Place and Merion Village Homes in Contract contingent on financing/inspections as of today: 13

• Averaging 1404 sf
• $163,377
• $121/sf
• 149 days on market

Schumacher Place and Merion Village area Homes in firm contract as of today: 1

But it’s irrelevant to this discussion

Greater Schumacher Place and Merion Village area Homes SOLD over the last 90 days: 26

• Averaging 1299 sf
• $155,460 avg List but a $148,327  Sale price or 94%
• $116/sf
• 94 days on market

Joe Peffer is a Realtor who works in Schumacher Place, Merion Village and other Columbus Neighborhoods.

Would you like me to break it down by Schumacher Place vs Merion Village or $/sf for Schumacher place condos? email me and I will be glad to help any way I can

And you don’t buy homes for sale in Columbus in a vacuum.  Just like all real estate is local, regions tend to have their own economies. Just like the Columbus area housing market hasn’t crashed to the tune of the National real estate markets that make all the headlines and take over mindshare, the Columbus economy is vast and varied and weathering the storm better than you may expect.

I recently ran across a conversation that Walker Evans had with Dr. Bill LaFayette, the Vice President of Economic Analysis at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce. They discussed a variety of topics related to the Columbus economy.

This is a great snapshot of the Columbus economy. If you’re moving or relocating to Columbus, Ohio, then  you may be surprised to hear about how important rail is to the region, or tourism.  Here is a small exerpt of this interview that touches on passenger rail…

WE: Being able to see some of these results from the shipping and commercial rail sector, do you think we could see some of the same types economic benefits from passenger rail service? We’re very close to seeing the 3C passenger rail systemstarting. Do you think we will see a similar type of benefit from personal transportation?

BL: Different but important. The benefit would be making it easy to get from Cincinnati to here, from Cleveland to here, which would be a big boost for our tourism market. Again, another sector that we may not give as much credit to as it deserves, we get a lot of tourism here. We have been cited as a travel spot. The Short North specifically has been cited in national and international publications. We have been in The New York Times travel magazine a of couple times, The Los Angeles Times and when SkyBus was flying, just about every city that SkyBus connected Columbus with sent a reporter here to ask the question, “why would in the world would anyone jump on a plane and go to Columbus?” And those articles were absolutely glowing, so we sell ourselves short, we definitely do. There is much more to see and do here than we often think.

WE: We posted links to a lot of those stories as they started to roll in due to Skybus. After they ended up folding, a lot of people were saying it was a total waste of time, waste of money, a waste of everything… but the amount of positive press on a national level that Columbus received out of the whole ordeal might have helped balance the equation in the end.

BL: Oh, it was definitely a positive. It sort of reminded the air travel community that Port Columbus is an available, accessible airport with capacity.

In this post-analog age, aren’t you glad your Realtor is a Delicious Realtor ?  Smart, Engaged, Informed, adding value.

(Of course this is all tongue in cheek. The impetus behind this post was to check the laptop cam straight to You Tube option–an incredibly easier option than first recording on the laptop and then trying to upload a gigantic file to the net)