Tag Archives: Columbus Ohio real estate

Cool Link: Housing Affordability Comparison

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In today’s cool link edition, we have a new study by the site Demographia that offers a housing affordability comparison for more than 90 markets across 8 different countries/places around the world. What is different about this study is that the comparison is done including a housing cost to income ratio, meaning that it takes into account local incomes versus housing prices. That makes it much more accurate in terms of an overall market comparison.

Demographia International Housing Affordability

Columbus ranks fairly well, overall, along with Ohio’s other 2 main markets in Cincinnati and Cleveland. Despite all the local complaints about housing becoming unaffordable, relative to just about everywhere else in the US, Ohio markets are actually inexpensive. That doesn’t mean that housing costs aren’t rising quickly or that more and more people aren’t being priced out of buying and owning a home, because that’s definitely happening and certainly an increasing problem. It just means that the problem isn’t quite as bad locally as it is in most other places.

Cool Link: Columbus Property Tax Abatement Map

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Columbus property tax abatement map

Around Columbus and Franklin County, tax incentives and abatements are granted to properties either for new development or to encourage improvements to existing buildings. Most of these incentives are given to properties in urban neighborhoods that have suffered from a lack of investment. However, in recent years, studies have shown that the distribution of them is both uneven and highly controversial, often going to rich developers in already well-established neighborhoods rather than those that need them the most. The link of the Columbus property tax abatement map provides both descriptions of the types of tax incentives used locally, as well as a map that shows what properties get what incentives and how much they amount to.

Franklin County Tax Incentives

In addition to abatements and incentives, TIFs, or Tax Increment Financing, uses targeted tax collection in specific areas to make improvements within said districts. Unlike tax abatements/incentives, TIFs can be found almost anywhere, and are regularly used in both suburban and urban neighborhoods, and are not always tied to improving declined areas.

Franklin County TIFs