Don’t Miss – the 35th Victorian Village Tour of Homes

Thinking of buying a home in Columbus’ Short North? Here are some of the homes available in Victorian Village.

This Sunday is the 35th annual Victorian Village tour of homes.  In this nicely done video, Martin Kehlmeier talks a little about the this year’s tour and gives a sneak peek of his Neil Avenue Home.

As in recent years, the tour is opened up to homes in Harrison West and Italian Village.  As a bonus, if you’ve ever wanted to see the Downtown views from the top of the Westminster Thurber independent living senior facility, here is your chance.

This year’s tour includes an updated Park Street Condo, some fabulous homes in Victorian Village, and 11 stops all together throughout the Short North. Tickets are $25 in advance.

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.

Finally, Grandview Yard could be more than a rendering

No, Hell hasn't frozen over, but there is news about possible tenants at Grandview Yard.

Oh yeah, all right.  What does this mean for home values in Grandview, Upper Arlington the Short North and those parts of Columbus in between? Nothing but good news.

(From today’s Business First……..)

Plans for the first phase of the Grandview Heights mixed-use development include a 126-room hotel, a fitness center and a 90,000-square-foot office building.

Plans filed with the city July 7 show developer Nationwide Realty Investors Ltd. wants to build the first $40 million worth of projects as it continues planning for the broader, $500 million to $600 million redevelopment on 90 acres in the suburb’s industrial core.

The city’s planning commission will consider the Hyatt Place hotel, Urban Active fitness center and a planned Jason’s Deli in the office building as conditional uses.  Dublin-based M&A Architects, the designer of the three-story office building, plans to occupy at least 20,000 square feet on the top floor.

More here including what would realistically have to happen and who would have to approve what to make this news a reality.

Columbus Real Estate Market Trends by Zip Code – good or bad?

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.

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.