Home values are, in part, tied to how well a neighborhood is performing. In the case of urban neighborhoods, how home values change over time may be a good indication of how that neighborhood is revitalizing. I looked at median home values by census tract for the years 2000 and 2010. Here is the map of how values changed during that period. What the different colors indicate are different levels of performance, obviously. Yellow and oranges indicate decline, which few areas experienced. Light green, which makes up quite a bit of the suburban areas in and outside 270, indicates mostly stability or slow growth (but below average) in home values. Dark green is average to a bit above average growth. Blues and purple are high growth areas.
What the map shows it that the strongest growth in median home values occurred in the urban core neighborhoods, especially along the High Street corridor. Pockets of strong growth also occurred around Easton and sporadically in some suburban areas. What this says, particularly for the urban core, is that quite a few neighborhoods are on the rise. Grandview, Upper Arlington, the Short North, Campus, Clintonville, German and Merion Villages, the western half of Weinland Park, Downtown, and the Near East Side around Franklin Park were some of the best performing areas. This would seem to indicate that strong gentrification is taking place.
According to Columbus Realtors, September continued one of the Columbus area’s longest positive streaks when it came to housing sales, although sales were down a bit from earlier this year. Overall, sales were up 13.1% and prices were up 4.2%.
For the housing report, I look at the 21 major areas of the Franklin County area (11 urban, 10 suburban). Here is what the September market looked like.
