Category Archives: Schools

Delaware County Property Tax Bills Arrive

Posted on 01/17/2012 | Leave a comment

Did you receive your 2012 Delaware County property tax bill yet? I received mine today. Oh, yay!

Along with the invoice was a post card explaining that although the assessed value of our properties had decreased, our taxes may not decrease due to various levies being passed.

The assessed value of my property went down 9½%. The Auditors are notorious for referring to the “value” as market value. Market value is what a buyer will pay for your home. The Auditor’s don’t know what that price is because they’ve never been inside your home to know whether it’s in top condition or not. It’s merely an assessed value which they use to calculate what tax amount you’ll pay. Since I’m not planning to sell, I’m OK with a reduced amount for calculating the taxes.

Even though my assessed value declined, the amount of taxes I owe increased 7%. The lion’s share of my taxes go to the schools – to the tune of 79%! A huge school district tax levy was passed last fall, so that isn’t surprising.

Knowing what the school district pays-per-student, I seem to be funding the cost of one child even though I don’t have any school age children. Thus, to whoever’s kid I’m supporting … you’re welcome!

BTW, the bill is to be paid to the County by Feb 10.

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Posted in Central Ohio, Delaware County, Home prices, Homes, Schools

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NAR Reveals Housing Sales Lower Than Reported Due To Errors

Posted on 12/15/2011 | Leave a comment

This week the National Association of Realtors announced that the data they’ve been releasing on home sales has been flawed – mainly understated – by possibly as much as 20% lower than previously reported. They said they will recalculate the data going back to 2007. The national news/business TV shows have reported on this because it will mean the housing decline will be much worse than earlier thought. So be prepared when you hear more about it.

NAR indicated a problem with areas where an agent might belong to two MLS’s and posts their listing in both MLS’s. Denver and Colorado Springs were mentioned, but there are high population areas – East Coast – where an agent needs to belong to more than one MLS in order to capture all potential buyers. When that ONE house sells, its sale is recorded in both systems so the sale is overstated.

The NAR also said there may be a problem with new-builds being double counted since they sometimes are listed in the MLS but the builder reports the sale as well. We have that issue here, since builder spec homes are often placed in the MLS. Even if the builder hasn’t put the home in the MLS, the agent who sells the home can enter it in after the sale in order to record a sale for that agent. Again, this would result in double counting for any report that has obtained data from the builders as well as the MLS.

Our own local Board (CBR) often issues reports by zip code. I’ve previously written why that is not a good move because many of our zip codes cross school district lines. Home buyers tend to want to buy homes according to the schools. To illustrate how the data can vary, let’s consider Powell’s zip code – 43065 – which primarily is southwest Delaware County, but it also extends down into Franklin County in the Smokey Row/Hard Rd area. There is a wide difference in the homes and prices in the entire zip code.

For Jan-Nov 2011, in the entire zip code of 43065 (excluding short sales, REO’s, foreclosures, condos), there were 377 homes sold at an average price of $347,114. But if we view it by the four school districts found within the 43065 zip, here’s how the numbers shake out:

  • Olentangy SD: 265 homes at average sale price of $394,425.
  • New Builds in Olentangy SD: 8 homes at average price of $438,264.
  • Buckeye Valley SD: 43 homes at average price of $291,400. (mainly an area around & part of Scioto Reserve)
  • Dublin SD: 24 homes at average price of $285,285. (primarily Shawnee Hills and Summit View Woods in Franklin County)
  • Worthington SD: 45 homes at average price of $154,717. (Franklin County around Smokey Row/Hard Rd)

This is why I don’t use the NAR or CBR data for any of my reports on this blog. There are just too many misleading nuances. Real estate is local and if one doesn’t know about or understand the specific points of a given area, the public can really be misled.

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Posted in Central Ohio, Delaware County, Home prices, Homes, Housing stats, New home builders, Schools, Surveys

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Post election info. Read it and weep???

Posted on 11/11/2011 | Leave a comment

Business First published an article on the 2011 School District Rankings as released by the Ohio Department of Education. Their website includes a searchable database for readers to look up their specific district or compare it to other districts.

Local Schools Rank Within the State

2011 Ohio School District Rankings
Rank District Students Index $/Student
40 Dublin 13,614 106.94 $13,013
41 Olentangy 16,263 106.93 $9,465
49 New Albany 4,191 106.63 $12,249
124 Hilliard 14,945 103.53 $11,398
138 Worthington 9,098 103.15 $13,305
168 Big Walnut 2,797 102.35 $9,261
175 Marysville 5,345 102.16 $9,467
190 Westerville 14,105 101.92 $10,890
226 Bckye Valley 2,344 101.10 $9,938
266 Delaware 4,942 100.34 $10,009

Salaries of Some School Positions

You can also search by school for the salaries that are paid by district. The highly controversial SB5 (Issue 2) was about helping local governments decide how to best spend their budgets rather than having the public sector unions dictate salaries, benefits and pensions. The voters repealed the bill and now with many school levies having failed, schools and local governments are looking for ways to cut expenses to meet their budgets.

Out of curiosity, I checked the Business First database for salaries for the school district I live in – Delaware. Delaware was a district whose hefty levy passed. My findings:

  • 2 Superintendents: one earning $121,290; one earning $112,019
  • 1 Assistant Superintendent earning $109,535
  • 8 Principals with salaries between $109,535 to $77,411
  • 6 Assistant Principals with salaries between $78,584 to $69,673
  • 2 Directors earning $105,165 and $98,920
  • 3 Supervisors earning between $101,106 to $65,784
  • 12 Remedial Specialists with 5 earning in the $70,000′s.
  • 11 Counselors earning between $78,887 to $51,044
  • 291 Teachers with 66 earning in the $70,000′s; 66 in the $60,000′s; 57 in the $50,000′s; 53 in the $40,000′s; 39 in the $30,000′s; and 19 below $30,000
  • 30 Clerical workers earning between $60,377 to $20,106

You might want to check YOUR district before the next election asking for more money from the voters.

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.

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

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Central Ohio Schools’ Performance vs Property Taxes

Posted on 08/29/2011 | Leave a comment

On Wednesday I wrote an article about the recently released Ohio Schools Report Cards. I just updated the Tax Graph that shows the relationship of several school districts as per their property tax rates with an overlay of the recent ratings of the schools. All of the school districts that I normally cover in this blog are doing very well. Most notably, the Delaware school district improved from Effective last year to Excellent With Distinction for this year.

2010 Property Tax Rates for some central Ohio school districts

Click to enlarge, then click again to further enlarge

Each bar within the school district represents a taxing area within the district. Assessments are based on a dollar amount per $100,000 of assessed value from the county auditor (Delaware or Franklin Counties). Of course, property taxes are used for more than just schools, but school funding makes up a large portion of our property taxes.

To see how the school districts compared with last year’s Report Card ratings, read more here.

Call me if you have questions on interpreting the chart.

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

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Ohio Schools Report Cards are out

Posted on 08/24/2011 | Leave a comment

The new Report Cards for Ohio schools has been made public today. You can check your own school district at reportcard.ohio.gov for extensive details and explanation of the various grading criteria. The following are the new ratings for some local schools.

Delaware County

  • Olentangy – Excellent with Distinction
  • Delaware City – Excellent with Distinction *
  • Big Walnut – Excellent
  • Buckeye Valley – Excellent

Franklin County

  • Dublin – Excellent with Distinction
  • Hilliard – Excellent with Distinction
  • Westerville – Excellent with Distinction
  • New Albany (Plain Local) – Excellent
  • Worthington – Excellent

Union County

  • Marysville – Excellent with Distinction

* Congrats to Delaware Schools for improving from an Effective rating to Excellent with Distinction!

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

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10-Yrs of Home Sales Show That It’s A Buyer’s Market

Posted on 06/21/2011 | Leave a comment

Yesterday I posted a graph showing the average prices of homes sold the past 10 years. Today I’ve prepared a graph showing the NUMBER OF HOMES SOLD  in that same time period. This chart illustrates why there is so much concern about the real estate market and the need to improve the sales because the real estate industry supports jobs for many related industries.

2002-2011 # Homes Sold Jan May in central Ohio

Click to enlarge, then click again

You’ve probably heard Realtors® say that there are fewer buyers than there were in the early part of the 2000 decade. This chart certainly illustrates that. The bump-up in 2010 was due to the $8000 Gov’t tax credit for 1st time home buyers. Buyers had to be in-contract by the end of April to take advantage of that tax credit. Some of those contracts would have closed in May, thus driving up the sales for the Jan-May period.

Prices and interest rates have been declining in recent years, which should drive up the demand, but that’s not happening. The financial institutions began eliminating 100% financing and established tougher criteria for buyers to meet when seeking mortgages. Buyers had to begin having some down payment money and better credit scores. You can see this effect with the declines after 2007. This financing change impacted 1st time buyers the most and that’s likely why Hilliard and Westerville sales have declined so visibly as both suburbs are popular with 1st time buyers due to the average price of the homes. (See yesterday’s chart)

What should your take-away be from this chart’s info?

  • Buyers: If you have the funds, it REALLY IS a good time to buy.
  • Sellers: Competition is stiff so your home needs to be priced right and in top condition to appeal to the few buyers that are shopping.

View same data for AVERAGE PRICE 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.

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Posted in Buyers, Hilliard Ohio, Dublin Ohio, Worthington Ohio, Lewis Center Ohio, Powell Ohio, Delaware Ohio, Franklin County, Delaware County, Central Ohio, Schools, Homes, Housing stats, Home buying process

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