Inside the Walls of an Historic Columbus home with Character

Working primarily in first ring suburbs like Bexley and Grandview and along the High Street corridor running from Merion Village to German Village to the Short North, Campus, Clintonville and Worthington, I see many old homes.  I happen to have a passion for older homes and I love nothing more than uniting homes with character with people of great character.

When it comes to fixer uppers, I love seeing them post-rehab but I love seeing them in the raw even more. I love to see behind the scenes, I love to see the during and I love to see the ‘after’ – especially after someone has lovingly restored an historic Columbus home and called it home for some time–as opposed to a quick flip.

Rarely do you get to see inside the walls of an historic Columbus home, behind the plaster and lathe to see what lurks there and how its made. In just such a home in Olde Towne East recently, I had an opportunity to shoot a quick look at what lurks behind the walls of a serious fixer upper.

Olde Towne East Real Estate Update

This 5 bed 2.5 bath 3600 sq ft home on Bryden Rd sold recently for $285,000

This update includes much of the entire Near East from approximately Mt Vernon to East Main and East to Nelson Road

Homes on the market: 112 Olde Towne East area homes for sale.

• $150,082
• $68/sf and
• 138 days on market.

Olde Towne East area Homes in contract with escape clauses:

None – No Homes you could still, conceivably, swoop in and buy

Olde Towne East area Homes in Contract contingent on financing/inspections as of today: 18

• Averaging 2103 sf
• $103,778
• $45/sf
• 142 days on market

Olde Towne East area Homes in firm contract as of today: 10

• Averaging 2598 sf
• $65,010
• $21/sf
• 79 days on market

Olde Towne East area Homes Closed over the last 90 days: 19

• Averaging 1755 sf
• $80,476 avg List but a $77,610 Sale price or 94%
• $35/sf
• 62 days on market

Joe Peffer is a Realtor who works in Olde Towne East and other Columbus Neighborhoods.

All over Columbus the type of home that has been most sought after is the inexpensive first time home buyer or investor home. In the near East side of Columbus, this trend is amplified as you can see above and includes many bank owned properties. Would you like me to break it down by 43203 vs 43205 or legitimate, nice homes vs dilapidated bank owned homes? email me and I will be glad to

Columbus Economy – Columbus Real Estate Markets don’t Exist in a Bubble

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.

Announcing the Summer of Love !

The first week of Summer, the 40 year anniversary of Woodstock and Comfest weekend…..It can only mean that Delicious Real Estate is declaring this the Summer of Love, Columbus Neighborhood Love!

We’ll be out on the streets, talking to real live Columbus area Natives about their Neighborhoods and why they Love their Columbus Neighborhood.

Want to send in your video or send a link to it? That’ll work too. We’ll roll out at least 3-5 short videos per week. Get excited Columbus and tell the world about why you love your community.

Columbus’ Delicious Real Estate Survives DTV Transfer

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)