The 2024 housing market in Columbus was largely one that continued trends of the past several years- generally increasing prices, a shortage of inventory and a quick sales turnaround.
We’ll start this look back by reviewing how the overall metro area and individual county housing markets performed. Total 2024 Home Sales in the Metro Area: 24526
2024 Home Sales % Change in the Metro Area: +3.07%
2024 Metro Area Median Sales Price: $335,555
2024 Metro Area Median Sales Price % Change: +5.34%
Both home sales and median sales prices were up in the overall metro area.
Now let’s look at individual sub-markets within the metro.
First, overall sales.
Next up, here is the median sales price data.
And finally, here are the charts for the fastest and slowest-selling markets in 2024.
If you don’t see data for the market you are looking for, vist the Housing Reports page of the Columbus Realtors site.
A view of permitted residential units in Ohio going back to 1980.
With the Housing Data App, users can access different types of housing data for the state, metro, county and city levels going back to 1980. The housing data comparison can be viewed view residential units permitted, total buildings permitted or overall property values. The data can also be view in total and per-capita. Additionally, if you prefer, you can compare different cities or counties or states and see how their performance compares over time.
For today’s Random Columbus Photo 12, we don’t go back too far in history, but the before and after are definitely one of the more dramatic comparisons featured so far. Larger versions of both photos are available if you click on them.
Before: N. High Street at Hubbard Avenue looking northeast, around 1980. The Short North by the 1970s was considered a declined neighborhood with significant crime and prostitution problems. Police were called there often, and history tells that it was the police themselves who coined the name of the neighborhood, since it was an area that was just “short of Downtown”. In the photo, you can see buildings at 790 N. High and beyond. At the time, they were a Trailways bus station and some kind of office building. Trailways was eventually replaced by other businesses and restaurants over the years, the last being the restaurant Haiku until it was all demolished for the current hotel building.
After: The same view in 2024. The picture from 2024 shows a drastically transformed neighborhood. After more than 40 years of renovations, revitalization and construction, the Short North has shed it’s drab and shady past. Crime stubbornly persists despite the improvements, but not nearly to the same degree. The taller apartment building in the older photo was torn down in the 1990s.
The approximate location of the proposed atom collider tunnel.
Today’s failed project is a short, but interesting one- Ohio’s atom collider.
On August 9, 1985, the Columbus Dispatch ran an article about an “atom tunnel” to be located underneath parts of Delaware, Marion, Morrow and Union counties. This 60-100 mile long tunnel was to be one of the first of its kind, an early version of the Hadron Collider in Europe. The $3 billion dollar tunnel was to be buried 200 feet down and be about 10 feet in diameter. Ohio was not the only state vying for the project, but Ohio was considered to be near the top of the list. Ohio would’ve had to spend $66 million to get the site ready, anchored by a 5,000 acre project laboratory in Delaware County. The project, expected to bring 3,000 construction jobs and 6,000 permanent jobs, was expected to put the state at the forefront of scientific research.
This project largely failed for one reason: The Reagan Administration. Though the Department of Energy and the science community wanted this and other science advancements funded, it never went through, so the funding never became available. Instead, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) took the lead and built the now famous Large Hadron Collider, between 1998 and 2008. While Ohio’s “atom tunnel” would by now be far outdated, who knows what kind of research and technological advancement, even to this day, would’ve taken place under the Columbus metro’s northern counties.
After 4 previous tries, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow casinos to operate in the state’s 4 largest cities. Three years after that 2009 vote, casinos began operations in Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo, with Cincinnati’s casino opening the following year in 2013. The Columbus casino was originally supposed to be built Downtown in the Arena District. Specifically, it was supposed to be built where the Crew’s new stadium now sits. There was quite a bit of opposition to this plan given that casinos provide little to no external business traffic, and the thinking was that it would’ve caused more problems for the neighborhood than what it was worth. So, the following year, a second statewide vote allowed for the Columbus casino to change locations to the West Side. The site that was chosen was the former Delphi plant, which had been closed since 2007. A bit of hypocrisy and irony was not lot in the demand to move the site, though. The West Side and Westland area were already in late state decline at that point, and proponents of the move claimed that the casino would help the area improve. This claim was made despite the fact that the move was initiated with the idea that it would’ve hurt the Arena District. Still, the West Side seemed to be all for the move, as a new business- even a casino- was still better than a closed and deteriorating industrial plant. Columbus’ Hollywood Casino opened on October 8, 2012 after about 2 years of site clearing and construction. While visions of the West Side raking in the benefits never really materialized in reality, the casino itself has gone on to great success in terms of revenue.
Initially, Cleveland- whose own Jack Casino was located in the heart of its downtown- was the highest earner by revenue in the state, Columbus passed it by 2016 and has been the state’s leader ever since.
All the casinos saw a 2020 drop as they were closed for 2 months and had hour restrictions into early 2021 due to the pandemic. Curiously, though, all of the casinos saw a huge increase in revenue over where they were in 2019. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
