Category Archives: Lewis Center Ohio

Articles about Lewis Center Ohio

Real Estate Sales Are Local

Posted on 06/20/2011 | Leave a comment

Many national organizations quote trends in real estate prices. There is a real problem in paying attention to those numbers and “assuming” those trends apply to our local central Ohio area. Each market is different and within each market there are differences. We often don’t know whether the data is for single-family homes only, or whether they include condos. Perhaps someone has quoted sales by zip code, which here in central Ohio, can include 2-3 different school districts, giving a meaningless number. I prefer to only gather sales data for single-family homes by school district since that is the way most buyers shop for homes.

I just completed updating the 10-Year Averages of the price homes sold for from January thru May by school district.

2002-2011 Avg Prices homes sold for Jan-May in central Ohio

Click to enlarge chart, then click again

You can’t view that chart and make a blanket statement that “prices are up” or “prices are down“, yet the EXPERTS do that all the time. The one take-away conclusion we CAN make is that the local real estate market has not recovered from the highs in 2006-2007. Many listing agents will tell sellers that if they bought their home in 2004 or after, they will not be able to sell for what they paid for the home.

View same data for the NUMBER of homes sold.

Copyright © 2011. Elaine Reese, Real Living HER. Reproduction of any portion of this blog post or the images is prohibited by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If this post is being viewed on any site other than www.ReesesPiecesOfRealEstate.com then the material has been stolen without permission. Violators will be reported.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Delaware County, Delaware Ohio, Dublin Ohio, Franklin County, Hilliard Ohio, Home prices, Homes, Lewis Center Ohio, Powell Ohio, Worthington Ohio

Tagged 10-Yr Home Pricing History, Big Walnut school district, Buckeye Valley school district, central ohio real estate market news, Delaware school district, Dublin school district, Hilliard school district, Marysville school district, Olentangy school district, w, Westerville school district, Worthington school district

Golfers … southern Delaware County is YOUR place to be

Posted on 04/10/2011 | Leave a comment

golfers in southern delaware county ohio Today is supposed to be our first really warm day after a long, cold winter. I expect a lot of people will be hitting the golf courses today. If you live in or near southern Delaware County, you have many courses to choose from to play. Many are semi-private so check first.

If you like the idea of owning a home on a golf course, I can help you with that as most courses are lined with homes.

Here’s a list that I put together of the courses in the southern half of Delaware County. Click on the club’s name to go to the course’s website.

Southwest part of the county - Powell, Liberty Twp area:

Tartan Fields Golf Club
The Country Club at Muirfield Village (not the PGA Memorial Tournament course)
Wedgewood Golf & Country Club
Shamrock Golf Club
Safari Golf Club
Kinsale Golf & Country Club
Scioto Reserve Country Club
Riviera Golf Club

Lower southeast part of the county – Lewis Center, Westerville area:

Little Bear Golf Club
The Lakes Golf & Country Club (Highland Lakes)
The Medallion Club

Upper southeast part of the county – Delaware, Galena, Sunbury area:

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Central Ohio, Delaware County, Delaware Ohio, Galena Ohio, Golf course communities, Golf Village, Kinsale, Lewis Center Ohio, Muirfield, Powell Ohio, Scioto Reserve, Wedgewood

Tagged central ohio real estate market news, list of golf courses, southern delaware county ohio

Delaware County 2010 Census Data Released

Posted on 03/11/2011 | Leave a comment

The 2010 Census data is out for Delaware County. The county remains the fastest growing county in the state, increasing by 58.4% since 2000. During those 10 years, the population increased from 109,989 to 174,214.

The growth was not evenly distributed throughout the county, however. As I’ve reported here before, the growth and the density is primarily in the southern portion of the county. The new Census confirmed it. The areas in the county with the highest population increases are shown in the map below. Essentially all the area in the lavender box are the high-growth areas.

Click to enlarge, click again to enlarge more

the Polaris area was up 280%.
Concord township region was up 127%.
Galena area was up 114%.
Genoa Township region up 104%.
Orange Township region up 91%.
Powell area up 84%.

DATA SOURCE: Delaware Gazette, Staff Writer Kate Liebers

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Central Ohio, Delaware County, Galena Ohio, Lewis Center Ohio, Powell Ohio, Surveys

Tagged 2010 census data, central ohio real estate market news, Delaware County Ohio growth rate

Are you getting your money’s worth?

Posted on 02/07/2011 | Leave a comment

In Ohio, our property taxes pay a good portion of the funding for schools. That has been a hot topic politically for several years and the issue isn’t resolved yet. Of course, our property taxes pay for more than just the schools, such as police, fire, emergency services, libraries, etc.

For a number of years, I’ve provided readers with a graph of the residential tax rates for all the taxing areas within a school district. With every update each year, the tax rate increases. There are also significant differences from one school district to the other depending on the levies residents have voted on. How much a school has to spend can also rely on the number of homes, the type of property (upscale homes vs farm land) and the concentration of retail, office, and corporate businesses.

This year I added in the Ohio Dept of Education’s report card rating. As I was retrieving all the data, I thought that the higher ODE ratings would match the higher county assessed property values. As you’ll see on the chart, a district such as Buckeye Valley (mostly rural) seems to be “doing more with less” in that their ODE rating is the same as much higher assessed (taxed) districts.

central Ohio assessed tax rates per school district

Click to enlarge chart, then click again

**Additional Stats**
School District	Graduation Rate	2010 Avg Home Price
New Albany	99.6%	$429,398
Dublin	98.5%	$331,705
Upper Arlington	98.3%	$353,377
Hilliard	95.4%	$197,642
Buckeye Valley	94.2%	$205,342
Westerville	93.4%	$193,447
Olentangy	98.1%	$335,190
Big Walnut	97.9%	$283,001
Worthington	95.5%	$231,887
Delaware	91.5%	$142,116

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Central Ohio, Delaware County, Delaware Ohio, Dublin Ohio, Franklin County, Galena Ohio, Hilliard Ohio, Homes, Housing stats, Lewis Center Ohio, Powell Ohio, Schools, Worthington Ohio

Tagged central ohio real estate market news, county tax rates, Delaware school district, Dublin school district, Hilliard school district, Olentangy school district, school district report cards, Westerville school district, Worthington school district

What will housing prices do in 2011 in Central Ohio

Posted on 02/03/2011 | Leave a comment

Let me start by saying that I don’t believe anyone knows what home prices “will do” in 2011. There are just too many variables and too many national or global events that can have an impact. It also depends on the data the “forecaster” is using and the area the forecaster is considering.

Recently Forbes projected that the Columbus metro area housing prices would see a 2.1% price increase. Columbus was 5th of the 10 markets projected to increase in 2011.

“There really is this segmentation of these markets occurring where the one-size-fits-all national level numbers to represent all numbers really isn’t valid anymore,” notes Alex Villacorta, senior statistician at Clear Capital. “Overall we’re seeing prices start to stabilize going into 2011, but unfortunately some of those markets will stabilize in the downward direction where others will see a sustained recovery.”

Business 1st just released a 2011 projection with a headline that prices “will stink”. Their source was Fiserv, Inc.

Fiserv Inc. reports average home prices in Central Ohio fell 1.5 percent from the third quarter of 2009 through the end of the same period in 2010. Battered homeowners could see those prices sink an additional 2.8 percent by the third quarter this year and, according to Fiserv’s projections, and not begin to turn around until mid-2012.

That’s two totally opposite points-of-view. We all know that all real estate is local. In January, I did a year-end review of 10-Year Average Prices for the area I service. For my service area, I would project that prices may be stable-to-increasing for southern Delaware County (Powell, Lewis Center, Galena) and Dublin. Someone reporting on Hilliard, Westerville or Delaware real estate might have a different viewpoint.

The one thing I DO know is to not pay attention to National numbers. Another good idea is to always look at the source of the data the forecaster is using AND whether there is a motive to skewing the numbers to fit a particular objective.

If real estate is “location, location, location” then quoting data is “challenge, challenge, challenge”.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Central Ohio, Delaware County, Delaware Ohio, Dublin Ohio, Franklin County, Galena Ohio, Hilliard Ohio, Home prices, Homes, Housing stats, Lewis Center Ohio, Media, Newspaper, Powell Ohio

Tagged Business First newspaper, central ohio real estate market news, Forbes list

Another home project – ceiling fan installation

Posted on 01/19/2011 | Leave a comment

I’ve lived in my current home nearly 14 years. I never had a ceiling fan installed even though there was a rough-in for one. After my December makeover, I decided that now was the time.

At the first home I had built, I did the installation. That home also had a 2-story ceiling but the ceiling was flat where the rough-in was. I rented a huge step-ladder, managed to get it home in the sports car I had then, and proceeded to do the installation. For that home I had purchased a Casablanca fan that was heavy. When attached to the extender rod, I couldn’t lift all of it with one hand while making the attachment with the other … and being 14 ft in the air was no thrill either. So I had to go next door to ask my neighbor if I could borrow her husband.

This time I decided to have Lowe’s (Polaris store) do the installation. BTW, I had checked fans at Home Depot but they don’t install higher than 13 ft.

I made a video of the installation. The section of the vid where I speak is hard to see as the light from the windows behind me affected the contrast. Oh well, you don’t need to see me anyway.