Tag Archives: Big Walnut school district

Our Tax Rates Keep Going Up … Surprised?

Every year after the local property tax rates are published on the Auditor’s web site, I update a tax graph that compares the various rates for nearby school districts. I frequently get questions or requests from readers regarding these graphs.

Well, I just updated the graph again and this year there were some noticeable changes in the districts’ relationships with each other. Most noticeable is that the top tax rate is now approaching $100 (that’s per $1000 of assessed value). For all prior years, New Albany had the highest tax rate by far. Now the Hilliard district is higher than New Albany’s. There are other changes as well. For comparison, view the graph I posted a year ago to see how much things have changed. View 2011 graph.

2012 Tax Rates by Central Ohio School District

2012 central ohio tax rates by school district

Click to enlarge. Note that the base is at $20 not $0

NOTE: On March 6, Westerville approved a school levy. I doubt that the increase of that levy has been incorporated into the Auditor’s web site data at this writing.

Central Ohio Schools’ Performance vs Property Taxes

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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Ohio Schools Report Cards are out

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

  • OlentangyExcellent with Distinction
  • Delaware CityExcellent with Distinction *
  • Big WalnutExcellent
  • Buckeye ValleyExcellent

Franklin County

  • DublinExcellent with Distinction
  • HilliardExcellent with Distinction
  • WestervilleExcellent with Distinction
  • New Albany (Plain Local) – Excellent
  • WorthingtonExcellent

Union County

  • MarysvilleExcellent with Distinction

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

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

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.

Real Estate Sales Are Local

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.

Great News for Jan-Apr 2010 Housing Sales

WOW! Most agents were pretty busy in April as buyers hustled to take advantage of the gov’t Tax Credits that would expire the end of April. Lots of homes closed plus many more went into contract. Here’s the results for Jan-Apr 2010 as compared to 2009 for the number of homes sold in some of the school districts around metro Columbus.

  • Worthington SD home sales were up 35% vs 2009.
  • Hilliard SD home sales were up 32% vs 2009.
  • Buckeye Valley SD home sales were up 27% vs 2009.
  • Olentangy SD home sales were up 23% vs 2009.
  • Delaware SD home sales were up 9% vs 2009.
  • Dublin SD home sales were up 2% vs 2009.
  • Big Walnut SD home sales were down 9% vs 2009.

The white bars in the graph show the number of homes that are in-contract as of May 4, when I pulled this data from the MLS system. So the sales should remain strong for May as more homes go into contract during May.

Jan-Apr 2010 home sales

Click to enlarge graph

The housing sales shown above only include single family homes that were in the CBR MLS system. It does not include condos or new builds, unless those new builds were entered into the MLS system.

Copyright © 2010. 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.