As most of you know, I’m now the Broker & Owner of Delicious Real Estate. I’ve been working on the corporate site but have a long way to go. Just recently I have put up the working home search solution that will, more or less in the same fashion, be all over the company site at deliciousrealestate.com.
Will you please head over there when you get a minute and test the home search for me? Sign up for an account to save your favorites and for email updates to be delivered to you with homes matching your search, etc.
Any home-search-specific feedback you can give would be great. I hope to make improvements on the home search and perhaps have an entirely different product this time next year but for now, I want to make sure everything is working as it should be.
Thanks in advance for testing it and for your feedback.

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On Columbus’ near South side, there are a total of 344 properties for sale as of this afternoon. Ranging from one bedroom condos in the Brewery District to commercial and office spaces on Whittier or Thurman, they’re ripe for the picking.

Call me and we’ll go look at a few.

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Is this the best time to find a home for sale in Columbus, Ohio? Buying opportunities come and buying opportunities go. The one sure thing is that if you’re waiting to try to time the market, Waiting for it to hit the absolute bottom and anticipate mortgage rate drops, then you’ll fail.

There are a lot of great homes on the market right now.  Many of them are priced very, very well and come attached to Sellers who want to move on and are highly motivated to sell you their home. That doesn’t mean they’ll give it away, but you’ll likely find a better buying opportunity right now then you will have found in the last five years. I think some neighborhoods have seen the worst and are past rock bottom and recovering nicely. Other area neighborhoods were hardly effected at all.

What am I basing this crazy market conjecture on? Experience, Real Figures, and Know-How. There are 11,858 properties for sale in Franklin County this afternoon.  10,038 of those are priced at or below $300,000 – about 85%.  Surely Columbus looks like a bargain relative to most any other top 20 city.

Of the 3,579 listings that sold in Franklin County in the last 3 months, the average sales price was $152,475 and they’d been on the market, on average, only 92 days.  The same three month time period five years ago, as the market was really getting going, 4,983 listings sold with an average sales price of $158,793 and only 68 days on the market. Is the market really down 28% in terms of total sold listings and 4% on price? Buyers are oddly scarce, though I’ve run in to multiple offers twice in a few weeks and yes, prices do seem very good. 

I could spout numbers and make them appear however you’d like, but the fact is that today is a great time to look for a home in Central Ohio.   

 

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for Voting to Insure Columbus can Compete with other Major Cities

No doubt anyone who voted Tuesday couldn’t miss Issues 14–19 on the ballot.  It may have taken some reading to get through them, but the end result was that Greater Columbus overwhelmingly approved all six issues and helped provide for our residents’ future.

Real Estate is about so much more than just a single property.  Cities that don’t pass Bond Issues and don’t improve their infrastructure, parks or rec centers, or fix the potholes in the street don’t attract employers or home buyers. Columbus has stepped up and said the city is here to compete on par with any other.

The Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce has said that approval of the package will provide 5,500 jobs in Greater Columbus each year for five years and put $3Billion (!) into our local economy.

These issues are important to the future of Columbus and I’m thrilled that Columbus Voters made it clear that they care about the quality of life in our neighborhoods and in our City.

The Dispatch said today that prior to this vote, the City had a string of 36 consecutive winning bond issues over the last 23 years. The City Auditor estimated that taxpayers will save around $28 million through the years in interest payments on $1.66 billion worth of projects such as:

• street repairs and construction
• sewer and water-service improvements
• Bike Path building and maintenance
• Trash truck replacements
• New and rehabbed rec centers
• For every $100 million invested by the City, $181 million is generated for the local economy.

http://columbusbondpackage.org/

 

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You haven’t heard much about these two issues but they are important for the practice of real estate in Ohio.

A YES vote on Issue 2 will renew the existing $400 Million Clean Ohio Fund – but WILL NOT raise taxes.  This fund preserves the natural areas and farmlands, protects waterways and redevelops urban areas to foster economic growth. It also helps clean up polluted industrial sites – which in turn also helps urban areas in many ways.

A YES on ISSUE 3 will prevent potential inference of private water rights that could result from a misinterpretation of provisions in the Great Lakes Compact. The end goal of Issue 3 is to protect landowners’ rights to the “reasonable use” of water on or running under their property.

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If you haven’t voted early, do it Monday or stand in line Tuesday and take part in what makes America special.  Wondering where the presidential candidates are on Housing?

Sen. John McCain:

• Direct assistance to homeowners. No taxpayer money should go to real estate speculators who made bad decisions about investments. 
  
• Reform financial and lending systems to prevent a repeat.
  
• Require participating lenders to forgive part of subprime borrowers’ loan principals and place them into new 30-year Federal Housing Administration loans.
  
• Give financing to municipal and civic groups trying to solve problems within their own communities.

Sen. Barack Obama

• Create a standardized disclosure plan that allows for full-disclosure of loan costs and provisions. 
  
• Crack down on mortgage fraud.
  
• Give a mortgage credit to those who don’t itemize deductions.
  
• Create a fund to help homeowners who face foreclosure refinance.
  
• Allow bankruptcy courts to modify a homeowner’s mortgage payments.

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune, Lori Weisberg

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Maybe about $23 Million.  It’s all still up in the air though – how much, where it would go, how to qualify, etc.

After Congress agreed to help out Joe Six Pack, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on Sept. 26, allocated more than 300 Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants to state and local jurisdictions totaling $3.92 billion. States receiving the largest allocations include California ($530 million), Florida ($541 million), Michigan ($264 million), Ohio ($258 million) and Texas ($178 million).

State and local governments must submit an action plan by Dec. 1 detailing how they will distribute the Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds, which are supposed to go to high-risk areas with the greatest percentage of subprime loans and foreclosures.

According to a spreadsheet made by researchers at the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC), intended to help local officials assess needs within states that were allocated funds, Columbus may be in line for $22,845,495.

Here are some other numbers for Ohio cities and counties:

OH OHIO STATE PROGRAM $116,859,223 OH COLUMBUS $22,845,495 OH CLEVELAND $16,143,120 OH TOLEDO $12,270,706 OH CUYAHOGA COUNTY $11,212,447 OH AKRON $8,583,492 OH CINCINNATI $8,361,592 OH HAMILTON COUNTY $7,970,490 OH MONTGOMERY COUNTY $5,988,000 OH DAYTON $5,582,902 OH FRANKLIN COUNTY $5,439,664 OH BUTLER COUNTY $4,213,742 OH STARK COUNTY $4,181,673 OH SUMMIT COUNTY $3,767,144 OH <?xml:namespace prefix ="" st1 ns ="" "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:mappoint:smarttags" />CANTON $3,678,562 OH LAKE COUNTY $3,402,859 OH LORAIN $3,031,480 OH YOUNGSTOWN $2,708,206 OH EUCLID $2,580,464 OH ELYRIA $2,468,215 OH HAMILTON CITY $2,385,315 OH SPRINGFIELD $2,270,009 OH MIDDLETOWN $2,144,379

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It was five years ago this month that I started this blog.  It was a blogger blog back then and not nearly as involved and intricate as it is now – several iterations later.  Five years is a pretty long time for a real estate blog. Almost no Realtors were blogging back in 2003. Very few are today.

Now, I’ve opened Delicious Real Estate whose home page (currently in Beta only) is a glorified blog. I hope to attract to the Brokerage tech savvy Realtors who understand something about web 2.0 and how combining their Columbus Real Estate knowledge with the many technology tools at our fingertips creates value for their clients.

Here’s to five more. I hope you find great information here and I hope you keep coming back. I wonder what this blog will look like in five years? Keep reading about local markets and you’ll find out.

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The short answer is that your home search should be as wide as possible but only within realistic confines. 

This is something first time home buyers struggle with more so than 2nd or 3rd time home buyers. In part, that’s because a first time home-buyer in Columbus may find their home search defined much more by how much they can spend rather than where they’d ideally like to live. If you can’t afford your favored neighborhood, then you have to go where you can afford to buy (this is where a savvy realtor comes in handy).

Location is King, so start there.  Where do you want to live, best case scenario?

Can you afford that community? If yes, then zero in on your price range — the realistic one that goes from less than what you’re spending now (maybe even no bottom limit because you never know, maybe you could expand that little bungalow on a great lot) to the top of your comfort zone. Don’t even look past your comfort zone — just don’t.

As a general rule, the more homes you run across, the better.  Now that you have the realistic confines of location and price, keep your search as wide open as possible. 

You think you don’t want a ranch in Clintonville, but what if a 2,100 square foot ranch with a full, walk-out basement on a ravine comes on the market?  Maybe you’d take a look – but not if you don’t know about it.

You think you only want to look at homes in Grandview with at least 1.5 baths. What if your perfect 2 story with only 1 bath, within walking distance to Grandview Avenue comes on the market and has a perfect spot under the stairs in an old closet for a half bath? You would have missed it because you would have limited your search.

As wide as possible but only within realistic confines.

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blocking out the scenery and breaking my mind

If your home is for sale, there should be only one sign in the yard - a for sale sign. (Preferably a Delicious Real Estate for Sale Sign.)  John McCain may want to buy your mortgage and save your home, but keep his name off your yard. Central Ohio is a very polarized place.While it may be more pro-Obama than, say, Marysville, why would you want to alienate half the buyer population with your Obama sign and give off a bad vibe before the potential buyers -from the other party- even walk through the door?

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All across the country and right here in Columbus, Ohio, renters are finding out the hard way that their Landlords are not paying their mortgages.  Renters are paying their rent but the Landlords are not paying their mortgages.  Can you imagine finding out that your home is about to be foreclosed on because your idiot Landlord has walked away from the property but kept the rent you’ve always paid on time?

Granted, if you’re reading this, it probably isn’t happening to you.  What recourse does a renter have in such a situation? I’m not really sure, you’d have to ask a real estate attorney for a sound answer.  Aside from monitoring the Franklin County Sheriff foreclosure auction site, you may never know that you’ll be put out of your rented home until the Sheriff knocks on your door. 

This happened recently to a five family rowhouse in Merion Village.  A fellow Realtor, and this isn’t the first time she had to do this, had the job of listing it for the bank and having to speak with each renter to tell them they had to look elsewhere for living accommodations.  In cases like this, the bank often offers a cash-for-keys approach to any tenants who voluntarily vacate the premises in a reasonable and quick fashion—maybe one month’s rent or a little more.

It’s not a fun place to be for the Realtor.  Bad-guy Middle Man going around evicting people for Landlords who have absconded with the rent rolls. It’s an ugly situation that shows how important it is to develop as solid a relationship as you can with your landlord.

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Every year my family and I like to wake up early on Marathon Sunday, walk to the end of our street and watch thousands of people run by as we clap and cheer them on.  The end of our street is pretty much exactly the one mile mark of the Columbus Marathon.  Everyone is pretty much still together at this point of the course and it’s really an amazing site — runners as far as you can see extending down Broad Street toward downtown Columbus and toward Bexley. The air is chilly, the scene is always quiet and the sound of thousands of footfalls is simply amazing. 

There is a steady stream for an unusually long time, then we pick up articles of clothing that the runners have discarded, put them in a pile and head home. We’re home by 8:30 or so every year. What a great way to start the day.

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Currently, there are 57 active listings in Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff.  They range from an $84,900 1 bedroom 1 bath condo in Marble Cliff Corner to three Prescott Place condos ranging from $675,000 to $735,000 — both two and three bedrooms. (you may know how I feel about that project—nice, but….)

In September, TEN properties sold.  When you think about this, it makes Grandview a pretty active and healthy market with an absorption rate of somewhere between 5 and 6 months or about 170 days — a long time if you’re selling your Grandview home but considerably better than some other local markets. Better yet, the average last month was only 95 days on market.

The ten Grandview homes that sold last month ranged from a 2 bedroom Grandview Commons condo that went at list price of $134,900 after 143 days on market to a nicely updated 3000 sf, 4 bedroom home on Glenn that sold for $480,000 in less than two weeks on the market.

How many Grandview or Marble Cliff homes are currently in contract you ask? Well, 14 all total including a whopping TWELVE condos from Jamestown of Grandview to Cottswold Condos to Grandview Commons to Grandview Passage.  That means only 2 Single Family Homes are currently in contract in Grandview and I often say that the best barometer of where this market is are the contingent homes. These two homes aren’t really able to be lumped together though, one is listed at $256/sf on Cambridge and the other at $184/sf on Lincoln.

If you’re interested in a home for sale in Grandview or a home for sale in Marble Cliff, give me a jingle.

 

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Here is the breakdown for what has been happening in these Midtown Columbus Markets both in September and the last three months.  

Area September Sold Avg Price Avg $/sf Active  Active $/sf In Contract IC $/sf German Village/               Schumacher Place/               Brewery District        SIX $307,283 $237 207 $197 $9 $154                 Short North/               Harrison-Vic Village               Italian Village    Seventeen $250,366 $159 169 $204 35 $220                

 Thirty Five Short Northish properties in contract could be deceiving since without Ibiza and The Jackson on High condo projects, there really would be only about 15 with a slightly better $/sf.

Coming Tomorrow: An update on Grandview and Clintonville.

With 376 properties on the market in Columbus’ Short North and German Village areas, I bet we could find one that you’d love.

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It’s true. For some time now I’ve aspired to own my own Real Estate Company in Columbus.  I want to build something from the ground up. Please Welcome Delicious Real Estate. The Delicious Corporate office is located at 254 South Fourth Street in Sunny Downtown Columbus, Ohio.

The emphasis at Delicious Real Estate is on better servicing the client.  Buying or selling a home in Central Ohio just got a little better.  Smart, educated agents, better use of technology, better communication, more savvy, more outside the box, more nimble and more creative than big-box Brokerages – that’s delicious and that benefits the client and that saves/makes the client money time and time again.

It’s a new day in Columbus Real Estate. I can’t wait to talk to you about your Real Estate needs.

Along these lines, you’ll see some changes around Columbus Homes Blog, all for the better and nothing too crazy.  I need to devote a lot of energy to the new corporate site which isn’t quite ready for prime time.  It’s going to be a great presence though.

Delicious Real Estate is always looking for exceptional agents who “get it”.  If you want to talk, call or write me.

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Zip Codes are arbitrary.  Certainly you can use a search by zip code feature to find homes for sale in an area you’re interested in but you’ll also get areas you aren’t interested in.  When I go on and on about how all real estate is local, that means neighborhood by neighborhood too. 

Let’s take 43201 as an example.  When someone asks me what zip code the Short North and Italian Village are in, I’d tell them 43201.  Take a look at this map of 43201 though, and you’ll see that it also includes virtually all of Ohio State University, parts of Linden, and parts of Grandview.  Arbitrary. 

Your best bet is to call a Realtor (me) who knows a thing or two about Columbus Neighborhoods.  I can make a geographic polygon search for you that is exactly what you want from street to street.

If you’re moving to Columbus for a new position with The Ohio State University, and you search for homes for sale in the vicinity of Ohio State by using 43201, and your search is ordered from the most expensive on down, you may find something you like in a neighborhood you like—maybe something just off Neil Avenue in Victorian Village.  If your search is ordered from least expensive to most expensive, however, you’ll find some places you probably don’t want to live.

If someone is looking for a home for sale in Clintonville, I’d suggest 43202 and 43214 because that more than covers it. While there are some outlying communities that would show up like Salem Village just east of I-71, you’d still be more or less in Clintonville/Beechwold/Chaseland.

The Skinny on 43201

43201 Market Research and Demographic Information (education, marital status, median income, occupation, racial diversity, age) for ZIP Code 43201 in COLUMBUS, OH

 

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The Midwest has been hard hit by the foreclosure crisis and certainly Columbus has not escaped its fair share of foreclosures.  In fact, Cleveland and Cincinnati have been hit even harder.

During election season, it’s always fun to politicize real estate. This map, courtesy of hotpads, is a heat map of foreclosures by congressional district.  The more foreclosures per capita in a district, the hotter red it is.  No foreclosures in a district? It’ll be cold and blue. Notice our 15th congressional district is pretty much red hot.

But wait. Just this morning I heard that the company everybody uses to track foreclosures, realtytrac.com, doesn’t include rural areas.  Doesn’t include rural areas? Do you mean to tell me that all those numbers we’ve been hearing over the last 18 months or so don’t even include rural areas? It’s true, to the tune of not reporting on more than 900 rural counties.

That explains the foreclosure heat map of Ohio’s congressional districts even better, doesn’t it? No wonder West Virginia is ice cold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Properties in walkable communities tend to command the highest prices, anywhere from 40-200 percent more than drivable single-family housing.” — So says Christopher B. Leinberger in his new book The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream (Island Press, 2008).

Walkability is nothing new and it’s not a new topic here in Columbus. Who doesn’t want it all right out their doorstep so long as they also have a bit of the American Dream along with at least a bit of grass? While the above statistic may be accurate, I’m not sure we see it here in Columbus.

Olde Worthington and historic downtown Upper Arlington seem like they would capture a premium price for their own brand of urban walkability but, although it’s true to a point, there are other neighborhoods within those municipalities that do equally well if not better but that’s more about space.

It’s True that the Short North and German Village command a premium price because it’s all right there for you. Why haven’t Olde Towne East and Franklinton also become considerably more popular in light of movement back to the city centers? (True, Franklinton’s housing stock isn’t steller but it certainly is affordable) Is it because the amenities aren’t there yet? Is it the age-old chicken and egg problem of density vs. amenities downtown Columbus condos are still struggling with? Probably.

Anyway, here are Christopher B. Leinberger’s five ways cities can become more walkable:

1. Change zoning. True walkable urbanism requires high popular density, which often runs counter to zoning codes. Zoning laws also traditionally have set out to keep industrial and retail away from housing, which must coexist in a mixed-use development. Communities can adopt a new planning process that involves property owners, neighbors, retailers, developers, and planning and elected officials working together in bringing these often-complex developments to reality. Some cities are developing form-based codes that are not based on use (which is often the case with traditional zoning), but on the form of the building. These form-based codes are then implemented through an overlay district, which is placed on top of traditional zoning maps.

2. Invest in transit. (more…)

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Two very enthusiastic thumbs up!

As you can imagine, I keep myself informed about what is happening in Columbus and our surrounding communities.  I’m always on top of the latest community news because it’s good for me and good for my clients.  If I can tell you that the white Xs on the sidewalk mean the city will come by and replace that square of cement at no cost to the home-owner because of a bond package that was recently passed or I let you know that there will be a street-light assessment if you buy this home but not the last one we just looked at, I save you time and money.

I don’t report/recycle news here on the blog because Columbus Homes Blog is mostly about Columbus area Real Estate.  If you’re interested in the Banana Bean Cafe moving to Greenlawn Avenue, you can read about it somewhere else, like Columbus Underground maybe. 

At the same time, I find myself constantly considering the effect the news I read might have on local real estate markets.  Does Banana Bean’s departure bode badly for Shumacher Place? Will it effect the desirability or re-sale values of the homes surrounding it, especially on that Eastern Edge of Whittier?

While that’s a hyper-local and possibly irrelevant sample, it is another version of local news that is just as important to being happy in your new neighborhood as street light assessments and sidewalk replacements (which are almost always the home-owner’s responsibility, by the way).

So, from now on, look for me to comment on news that effects real estate markets from Billion Dollar Bail-outs to the latest home tour or retail/cafe opening.  Not all the news, but some of it.  Things that you might like to know if you’re moving to the Columbus area for a job at OSU or Children’s Hospital or if you’re moving to Clintonville from Merion Village.

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Clicking on the thumb nail will bring up a chart of the number of sold listings in the Columbus Real Estate Market this year and how that stacks up to prior years. The second chart reflects the dollar volume associated with those listings.  So far so good for 2008, locally prices seem to be down around 4% across Central Ohio as a whole. It also looks like we’ll catch the 2003 numbers in terms of number of homes sold.

What does it all mean? Not much. The fire and brimstone and Pollyanna theories on the Columbus Housing Market meet somewhere around these numbers.  They are the true and accurate visual representations of what is going on around us with some perspective sprinkled in. 

That said, all Real Estate is local and these numbers include counties outside of Franklin County that might not matter to you if you are selling your home Worthington or German Village or Harrison West.  If you want to know more about your specific real estate market, call me.

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