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"As a first-time homebuyer, I was nervous about the entire process. Step by step, Joe made it easy and fun. His expertise in the Columbus real estate market is a tremendous asset. He is highly recommended!" - Nicolette Horan

"I wanted to say thank you again, so much, for all your hard work. I know that you really put a lot of time into this transaction and I really, really appreciate it. I'm so happy I got the house and it all worked out and I just wanted to say thanks again, you did a great job and i really appreciate it. I will put that on the survey when they send it to me.

If there is ever anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to give me a call. I will refer every single person I know to you. I'm going to go get my dog and we're going to sit on the floor of our new house and have a glass of champaign. Thanks a lot Joe" -- Michael Mamp

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How All-Encompassing Should Your Home Search Be?

October 27th, 2008 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, German Village, Grandview, Olde Towne East, Real Estate News, Short North

Think outside the box of your next home when choosing your search criteria The short answer is that your home search should be as wide as possible but only within realistic confines.

This is something first time home buyers struggle with more so than 2^nd or 3^rd time home buyers. In part, that’s because a first time home-buyer in Columbus may find their home search defined much more by how much they can spend rather than where they’d ideally like to live. If you can’t afford your favored neighborhood, then you have to go where you can afford to buy (this is where a savvy realtor comes in handy).

Location is King, so start there. Where do you want to live, best case scenario?

Can you afford that community? If yes, then zero in on your price range — the realistic one that goes from less than what you’re spending now (maybe even no bottom limit because you never know, maybe you could expand that little bungalow on a great lot) to the top of your comfort zone. Don’t even look past your comfort zone — just don’t.

As a general rule, the more homes you run across, the better. Now that you have the realistic confines of location and price, keep your search as wide open as possible.

You think you don’t want a ranch in Clintonville, but what if a 2,100 square foot ranch with a full, walk-out basement on a ravine comes on the market? Maybe you’d take a look – but not if you don’t know about it.

You think you only want to look at homes in Grandview with at least 1.5 baths. What if your perfect 2 story with only 1 bath, within walking distance to Grandview Avenue comes on the market and has a perfect spot under the stairs in an old closet for a half bath? You would have missed it because you would have limited your search.

As wide as possible but only within realistic confines.

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The 2008 Columbus Marathon is tomrrow - Come out and Cheer them on

October 18th, 2008 categories: Bexley, Clintonville, Columbus News, Downtown, German Village, Grandview, Olde Towne East, Short North

Every year my family and I like to wake up early on Marathon Sunday, walk to the end of our street and watch thousands of people run by as we clap and cheer them on. The end of our street is pretty much exactly the one mile mark of the Columbus Marathon. Everyone is pretty much still together at this point of the course and it’s really an amazing site — runners as far as you can see extending down Broad Street toward downtown Columbus and toward Bexley. The air is chilly, the scene is always quiet and the sound of thousands of footfalls is simply amazing.

There is a steady stream for an unusually long time, then we pick up articles of clothing that the runners have discarded, put them in a pile and head home. We’re home by 8:30 or so every year. What a great way to start the day.

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Clintonville Real Estate Update - Homes Sold this Summer in Clintonville

September 4th, 2008 categories: Clintonville, For Home Buyers, For Home Sellers, Market Updates

I love this 4 bedroom home at 128 Crestview that sold in 31 days at list price of $299,000 Now that summer is all but over (yes, let’s not forget about the remaining 17 days but let’s face it – the kids are back in school and the summer selling season is all but wound down) let’s take a look at how well Clintonville homes did.

All in all, it was a very good Summer for Clintonville homes. Let’s dissect the market by looking at 43202 and then 43214, more or less South Clintonville and North Clintonville which would include Beechwold homes.

43202: Since June 1

65 Homes sold. These range from a 2 bedroom cottage that was only studs and in need of a complete rehab on Duncan that sold in one day for $43,000 to 3 bedroom 2.5 bath, 2400 sq ft home on Midgard that sold for $397,000 in 122 days (Yes, the one that started out at $440,000).

Average 81 days on market
Average $118/sq ft
Average sales price of $171,088
Average just under 1500 s.f.
Average list/sales price of 97%
89 Active South Clintonville Listings with a median list price of $128 s.f.
About 4.2 months months of inventory on hand

43214: Since June 1

115 Homes sold in the north Clintonville zip code of 43214. From a 1027 sf 3 bedroom on Kanawaha that sold for $61,000 in 13 days to an historic but dated 4 bed, 3.5 bath 3546 sf home in the middle of Old Beechwold that sold in 296 days for $520,000 (Yes, the one that was listed at $600,000 at the time).

Average 85 days on market
Average $135/sq ft
Average sales price of $205,389
Average just over 1530 s.f.
Average list/sales price of 96%
168 Active Clintonville homes for sale with a median list price of $144 s.f.
About 4.3 months of inventory on hand

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Are Homeowners-Alarmed by Gas Prices- Increasingly Looking to Urban Areas?

August 8th, 2008 categories: Clintonville, Downtown, For Home Buyers, German Village, Grandview, Olde Towne East, Short North

If you're interested in moving to an urban area, CALL OR EMAIL ME!! According to a recent Coldwell Banker survey, yes.

…. the primary reasons for this interest in urban living are related to work commute and energy-efficient modes of transportation:

81 percent cite minimizing a reduced work commute as a reason for the interest in urban living
54 percent agree that access to public transportation is appealing
75 percent agree that the ability to walk to more places is a positive

“Over the past several years we have seen a boom in downtown living all over the country and this is not just reserved to major cities,” said Jim Gillespie, president and chief executive officer of Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

Also interesting in this same survey was that, “…sales associates also reported they have seen an 84 percent spike in interest for properties with a home office, as compared to five years ago, indicating a trend towards telecommuting.

While the study also found that 64 percent of surveyed sales associates report their clients increasingly look for homes with “green” amenities that could save on heating, cooling and electricity costs, only 42 percent surveyed believe saving on energy costs are a reason for their client’s interest in urban living.”

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What Style of Homes can you Find for Sale in Columbus?

July 1st, 2008 categories: About Me?, Bexley, Clintonville, German Village, Grandview, Real Estate News, Short North

As fascinated as I am in home styles, I’m no architect. When I describe the architecture of my listings or homes I am showing, I find it helps buyers appreciate their value. While they both have “old brick homes,” Victorian Village and German Village have very different housing stock. Although I can tell a cupola from a parapet, or an eyebrow window from a palladian, I’m sometimes stumped or unsure and don’t like to throw something out there for the sake of looking like I know what I’m talking about.

July is home styles month here on Columbus Homes Blog and I’ll be reviewing different styles with intermittent posts over the coming weeks. Every house, no matter how plain, has a style. Style comes in part from ornamental details like columns and moldings and in part from structural features, such as the placement of the windows and the pitch of the roof. Yet, identifying that style can be a baffling process. Is it Spanish Colonial or Mediterranean? Italianate or Federal? And, what about the newly constructed home that seems to break all the “rules”?

Most houses do not fit precisely into any one category. Older homes may have gone through many renovations, taking on the features of several different architectural trends. Newer homes often combine ideas from a variety of styles and historic periods. Details help to give homes style, character and romance. In Columbus, you can find many different styles in many different neighborhoods and while there may be more to choose from in Clintonville than Hilliard, even a newer community has homes with character.

More often than not, I find other Realtors, especially suburban Realtors, have no idea what style a home is. Painting a broad stroke here, to tell the style of a home begin by closely observing a few key characteristics. This simple checklist below identifies some main features to look for. Although there are no pat answers, each of these features suggests styles to consider.

1. What shape is the house, overall?

Rectangular and symmetrical: National, Colonial, Neoclassical, Greek Revival, Italianate
Square and box-like: American Foursquare
L-shaped: Folk and National styles
Complicated and asymmetrical: Queen Anne and other Victorian styles, Chateauesque
Rounded corners: Pueblo, Art Moderne
Single story or 1½ story: Cape Cod, Ranch, Craftsman, Cottage styles
2. Does the roof have any of these features?
Unusually steep pitch: Gothic Revival and other Victorian styles, Tudor
Unusually low pitch: Craftsman, Prairie, Ranch, Monterey, and Spanish styles
Flat: Italianate, Beaux Arts, Pueblo, Mediterranean, and Modernistic
Gambrel: Dutch Colonial
Mansard: Second Empire and other French-inspired styles
Hipped: American Foursquare, Colonial styles, Victorian styles
Salt box: Colonial
Flared eaves: French styles, Craftsman, Prairie
Round towers: Queen Anne, Romanesque, Chateauesque, French styles
Cupolas: Italianate, Greek Revival, Second Empire
Rounded parapets: Mission
3. Is the house sided with any of these materials?
Adobe: Pueblo, Monterey, Spanish Colonial Revival
Stucco: Mission, Tudor, Spanish styles
Rough stone: Romanesque
Patterned wood shingles: Victorian styles
Half-timbering: Tudor, Stick, Queen Anne
Cedar shingles: Victorian Shingle, Craftsman, Tudor
4. Does the house have any of these window types?
Multi-paned: Adam, Georgian, Neoclassical
Diamond-paned: Tudor, Prairie
Palladian: Adam, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical
Round or elliptical: Adam, Neoclassical
Oriel: Tudor, Gothic Revival, Chateauesque
Casement: Tudor, Craftsman, Dutch Colonial, Spanish styles, modern styles
Pointed: Gothic Revival
Rounded with “eyebrow” hoods: Italianate
Fanlights: Adam, Neoclassical, Colonial Revival
5. Do you notice any of these details?
Dentil moldings: Georgian, Adam, Colonial styles
Garlands or floral ornaments: Federal, Adam, Beaux Arts
Turned spindles: Queen Anne, Carpenter Gothic, Folk Victorian
Zigzags or chevrons: Art Deco
Shutters: Cape Cod and other Colonial styles
Round, fluted columns: Greek Revival, Adam, Neoclassical, Beaux Arts
Square or trapezoid porch supports: Craftsman, Prairie, Mission, American Foursquare
Little or no ornamentation: National and Folk styles, Cape Cod, Ranch, Modern styles
*This post has beenn Adapted from an article by BY JACKIE CRAVEN that appears on realtor.org from a post circa January 1, 2004.

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Get off the Fence Columbus Real Estate Buyers, some Markets are HOT!

May 30th, 2008 categories: Clintonville, Real Estate News

Columbus real estate is hot! Don't sit on the fence! I have two clients looking for their first home in Clintonville. I like the clients very much, we’re having fun looking and they’re finding homes they like in their under $200,000 price range.

The trouble is, they keep going in contract either just before our second showing or as we’re ready to write an offer. The same thing happened yesterday with a couple who were trying to decide on two very different homes in the Westerville area on opposite sides of Hoover Reservoir. Don’t buy the doom and gloom you hear about and read every day. It’s not our Columbus Real Estate Market the Associated Press is writing about and NPR is reporting about.

Though, yes, things are slow in the Short North, in Downtown Columbus and other urban neighborhoods. Back to the nice buyers in Clintonville…..Yesterday, one of the buyers’ parents were in town for the Memorial Tournament and we had a plan to schedule the top four homes for 2^nd showings.

The plan fell apart quickly. One home was already in contract. No problem, that was the long-shot home anyway. Another home had an offer on it and the seller had to respond by 9pm. Our showing was around 6 so if that turned out to be the one, the buyers could still throw their hat in the ring. Another home the two buyers had seen Sunday at an open house was ‘probably’ in contract, so I was told. I call the listing agent and she calls back later, yes, the home had just gone into contract and the sellers couldn’t bear any more showings since they had so many. (it’d been on the market 10 days)

House number four was the buyers’ favorite anyway. Even the 2^nd time around. In fact, it was better than we all remembered. The parents liked it too. Buyers were going to sleep on it, we were going to look at the property disclosures and we were going to make an offer on it the next day. Mid afternoon the Seller’s group of agents calls and informs me the house is in contract as of before we even had our 2^nd showing. We never had a chance.

While it could be argued that the Seller’s Realtors should have known there was going to be a 2^nd showing at some point during negotiations with the actual buyer and they could have used that to help the seller’s bottom line and to motivate my clients to write an offer, the story here is that people are buying homes for sale in Clintonville, Westerville and other Columbus Neighborhoods.

Luckily, there’s still a lot on the market and more coming all the time. Want to get yourself a home? Call Me or Email Me and we’ll get the ball rolling.

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Putting the Community in Clintonville’s new Whetstone Park Community Center

May 14th, 2008 categories: Clintonville

Rooting Out the Rotten Tomatoes

By CLAIRE SUDDATH

Workers separate tomatoes at the sprawling Central de Abastos market in Mexico City on June 10

Gregory Bull / AP

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So how much damage can a few rotten tomatoes really do? The tomato-linked salmonella outbreak announced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 3 has claimed 228 victims in 23 states over 58 days (and counting). It has put 25 people in the hospital and may have had a role in hastening the death of a cancer patient. And then there’s the flurry of panic as many of the tomatoes that American consumers take for granted every day suddenly disappear — from McDonald’s hamburgers; from the salsa at Chipotle Mexican Grill; from Burger King, Taco Bell and Sonic; and from the grocery shelves at Kroger, Wal-Mart and Target. Didn’t we just go through this with bagged spinach? With peanut butter? With pet food?

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Because the FDA’s tomato-recall recommendation is so specific — including only three types, grown in certain regions during a certain time — and because many national chains pulled their tomato stock within days of the announcement, most of the infected samples have likely been removed. But the outbreak remains ongoing; its source has not yet been determined, and the government is investigating new cases every day. It may be a few more weeks before the delicious staple fruit is given the all-clear.

Taking tomatoes off shelves and menus may contain the outbreak, but it doesn’t explain it. On May 22, the New Mexico Health Department notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it knew of seven people recently infected with Salmonella Saintpaul, an unusual strand of the bacteria that accounted for only 400 of the 1.4 million cases of salmonella infection reported last year. And it was precisely because occurrences of the Saintpaul strand are so rare that the report caught the CDC’s attention. When Texas and a few other states reported cases of people being infected by bacteria with the same “genetic fingerprint,” a multistate search for Salmonella Saintpaul was launched. While the CDC tracked reported illnesses, the FDA interviewed victims to find out what they had eaten (and where). The common answer was tomatoes.

There have been 13 outbreaks of salmonella in tomatoes since 1990, which puts the fruit on the list of high-risk foods that are prone to infection. But unlike the bagged spinach from the 2006 E. Coli scare, the tomatoes don’t come with a traceable bar code. “When you’re dealing with tomatoes, it is much, much more complex,” explains Dr. David Acheson, the FDA’s associate commissioner for foods. The FDA’s great tomato hunt has an ever-expanding list of suspects. A salmonella victim can point to the supermarket (or restaurant) that sold the offending fruit, but that store probably sources its tomatoes from several suppliers, each of which uses several distributors — and distributors buy from any number of growers.

“Each set of questions just multiplies into a fan of information that has to be sorted through to understand where the links cross over,” says Acheson. Although the FDA has managed to rule out some regions — northern Florida is safe because its tomatoes weren’t ready for harvest at the time of the outbreak — it will be some time until the true source is found. “We’re not quite there yet,” says Acheson, “but we’re getting very close.” But Dr. Ian Williams, chief of the CDC’s OutbreakNet team, warns that the source may never be found due to the fruit’s short shelf life. “You don’t expect to find an infected tomato sitting on someone’s counter 10 days after the outbreak,” says Williams.

Still, the lag time between the initial outbreak and the government’s reaction is startling: the first Salmonella Saintpaul victim fell ill on April 16, but the FDA didn’t announce the tomato link until June 3. Williams says part of the problem identifying salmonella outbreaks is that a lot of victims don’t see the symptoms — diarrhea, fever, vomiting — as sufficiently severe to warrant a visit to the doctor, and so they go undiagnosed. “There may be a delay in reporting outbreaks because people do not have a stool specimen tested,” he says. Officials have not yet identified an infected tomato, and because of the fruit’s short shelf life, they probably never will.

The FDA unveiled a tomato-safety initiative in 2007 that sought to identify causes of salmonella infection, but Acheson admits that studying preventive techniques doesn’t help the FDA deal with outbreaks. The FDA has no plans to change the initiative in the face of the recent outbreak.

Even if the FDA can pinpoint the source of the outbreak, it’s hard for consumers to know where their tomatoes are grown. Certain imported foods are required to carry country-of-origin labels, but that doesn’t apply to domestic produce. “I’m not aware of any tomato outbreak that was not domestic,” says Acheson. There is no such thing as a mandatory state-of-origin label for food, and federal authorities have yet to create such a law. “Saying ‘product of the U.S.’ isn’t necessarily going to confer safety,” he says. So much for reassurance.

Vi ste jeben.

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Clintonville Homes for Sale - Sold January 2008 update

February 7th, 2008 categories: Clintonville

448 brevoort is a 2 bed 1 bath that sold for $165,000 in THree days Oddly Enough, there wasn’t one Clintonville Home Sale West of High Street in January. There were 15 sales all told

2 of them were in 43202–-one on Crestview and one on Medary. The Medary home was tiny but nicely updated and the Crestview home was typical south Clintonville 3 bed, 1 bath that sold for $170,000.

The remaining 13 Clintonville Homes that sold in January went for an average of about $145.21/sf. A surprising four of those properties were 2 bedroom ranches that sold for $107,000 to $165,000.

The remaining 9 homes consisted of 3 four bedroom Clintonville homes and 6 three bedrooms. These homes together averaged about

$145/sf
123 days on the market
$244,433 or 95.7% of the last list price
almost 1700 sq ft

The most expensive Clintonville home that sold in January was 192 Canyon Drive, 4 beds, 2 baths, 2000 sf that sold for $402,000 after 278 days — originally coming on the market last April at a whopping $549,000. It is definitely architecturally unique and does have a nice location on Overbrook Ravine.

And, since I know you’re curious, 188 Chatham sold for $364,900 after 116 days.

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Rooting Out the Rotten Tomatoes By CLAIRE SUDDATH

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Rooting Out the Rotten Tomatoes

By CLAIRE SUDDATH