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Believe me, I don't want to see the Cincinnati I see. I inherited property there that forms a majority of my total personal wealth today. I desperately wish Cincinnati wasn't as it is. I don't know what alternate reality makes low real estate values with little growth a net positive. Detroit and Cleveland are disasters. If we're comparing Cincinnati to them, all hope is lost. Indy and Columbus are doing much better in growth in numbers of housing units and transactions almost entirely due to greater population growth. Chicago is on another level as it replaces it's old industrial economy to become the Midwestern headquarters of globalization. It's moving out old middle and working class people while replacing them with new professional class people. It's doing two things at once because it has the size and complexity to pull that off. Even Pittsburgh has managed to achieve some degree of professional class/globalized growth. That leaves Cincinnati....unable to engage the growth in numbers of housing units of Indy and Columbus, and unable to engage the professional class growth of central Chicago, either. Other than legendarily troubled metros like Detroit and Cleveland, Cincinnati does appear to be alone in missing out on both counts. Can you imagine if Cincinnati simply went from being 16 % undervalued to 8% undervalued? That would represent a substantial increase in the net value of real estate in Cincinnati. The question is why Cincinnati is so undervalues. Why is Cincinnati not engaging either aspect of the growth models we see in the rest of the region? There is absolutely no reason Cincinnati can't change. Cincinnati could definitely emulate aspects of success in other metros. 3cdc proves that on a modest but still noteworthy scale. We could work toward better public transit as in Pittsburgh and St. Louis..better land use planning and public infrastructure as in Columbus,..simplification of local government as in Louisville. None of that can happen if Cincinnatians see no reason to do so in the first place...which apparently the don't.

My snide comments were in response to others' snide comments. I honestly want to understand why Cincinnati under performs. Admitting that it does seems to be the issue here.

The data from the federal reserve is for 2000 to 2018. It covers 18 years.

Thanks for giving us an honest example of how Cincinnatians respond to criticism of Cincinnati.

Many of the others' comments aren't meant to explain Cincinnati's housing market, but to discredit an unwelcome interloper in their local 'boys club'....Cincinnatians are even clannish online!, My comments are meant to highlight the forces that structure Cincinnati's strongly undervalued housing market housing. Jobs, wages, population, local finances and institutions are the foundations on which a particular housing market is built. I sought to discuss why Cincinnati's undervalued real estate is built on its particular job market, demographics, and the structure of it's local politics and economy. I was responding to the unrealistic and uniformed discussion about housing I found in this forum. There has to be some reason Cincinnati is so cheap and the value of real estate investment here is so low. I'm just trying to encourage a discussion about that. You can't answer a question you don't even ask........

You're right. You were technically mocking me, not insulting me. Either way, I take it as a sign that you can't manage to refute my comments or the links I've posted.

There is no "business community." Castellini and Linder are on the board because the board understood the control of the local elites. Lindner was not instrumental in its founding. 3cdc chose to included them because they were told about how Cincinanti works. They didn't initiate it, though I'm sure that everyone involved benefited from giving that impression, especially as 3cdc's success became clearer for all to see. They were brought in to play the role of 'celebrity endorsers' for an organization created by others.

Personal insults are all you've got? My kingdom for a serious discussion!

Yes, Cincinnati's aggregate house prices are low and clearly undervalued. Houses aren't widgets. You can't distribute houses. You can't import and export them.

This suggests that Cincinnati housing prices should be about 16 percent higher.https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/housing-market-perspectives/2018/us-housing.

An increase from $1 to $2 is 50%. You still only have $2. Starting from a low price means that even modest increases in investment can lead to big percentage increases. I'll admit that that is a good bet for small investors who can't compete with institutional investors in other metros where prices are too high.

Once he saw how powerful it was becoming in Cincinnati..and once 3cdc saw the limits of what they could do without at least token support from the local elite.

The truth sometimes hurt. Owning car dealerships and parking lots on the most expensive land in a stagnant metro are enough to be part of its local elite. Philly is a great example. It's old, stagnant, and un-innovative. It has benefited modestly from it's access to NYC and the northeast corridor in recent years, but it helps to make my point. Austin, Nashville, Denver, Portland, Columbus, Indy, Minneapolis, etc. aren't dominated by family clans. Wealthy families aren't 'conspiring' they're pursuing their interests. I'm reminded that many don't understand how markets and socioeconomic classes were created and operate. Purely rationalist views of human nature don't explain human society. Read some Marx to see how capitalism works.

https://www.apartmentlist.com/rentonomics/national-rent-data/

Exactly. Why bother with investment and trying to increase property values when you can just take your cut off the top? Cincinnati's familial clans AREN'T interested in actually investing or developing the value of any properties in Cincinnati. That's my point. It's all the easier to play the game their playing when you don't have outsiders threatening to invest and increase the value of properties that might then compete with your operations. P&G isn't trying to incorporate its new purchases into its Cincinnati operations anymore because of their experience with Gillette. They let their new purchases continue to operate their separate R&D and PR from SF, Belgium, and other distant locales from which they'd never be able to lure top talent. The one time Cincinnati's biggest employers DID exercise power in Cincinnati was when they took advantage of the temporary political vacuum after the riots to try and exercise some influence in Cincinnati..creating 3cdc. The local players had no interest in 3cdc. Cincinnati's clans are rent-seekers, not actual property investors. Lindner is a perfect example. He let someone else take the actual risk of meaningful new development, 3cdc, and then sets up a subsidized deal from which he gets his cut. He doesn't have to find a way to make an legitimate profit from the deal. He doesn't have to actually risk anything. If he fails, he just carries on. These dynamics are not entirely absent from some other stagnant or slow-growing American metros, but they completely dominate Cincinnati. St. Louis, for example, exhibits some of this, too. But, virtually all Cincinnati's real estate market. with the glaring exception of 3cdc, is an exercise in rent-seeking by local familial clans. It all very different from the much more profit-driven dynamics of Columbus that unceremoniously jettisoned the closest it has to Cincinnati's clan, Lex Wexner, the moment he became a liability. Cincinnati runs on inter-personal loyalty. Columbus runs on market-based transactions.

Exactly! If Cincinnati is so appealing, why is there still so little demand? Why are rents still so low and investment so limited in rental properties in Cincinnati? That's just the kind of question we should be asking?

3cdc is not under the control of Cincinnati's local elite. The Jospehs and Linders resent it muscling on their territory. 3CDC is an example of What Cincinnati would be like more generally if its elite just got out of the way. In a growing city the c-suite of the biggest local companies would be the most influential in the area, but not in Cincinnati. A lack of growth means that there is little reason for anyone to WANT to have influence in Cincinnati. This leaves it open to those who don't care about getting a share of growth and instead are motivated by creating a defensive P & G is increasingly buying whole companies and running them as separate operations in distant cities because it can't get the best people to come to city that they see as a professional dead end. They have to buy their way into labor markets in more successful cities, today. digitalcommerce360.com/2020/01/10/procter-gamble-acquires-womens-shaving-supply-retailer-billie/ mediapost.com/publications/article/331564/pg-buys-small-personal-products-company-called-l.html

There is no evidence that investors "drive rents in Dayton." Places are easier or harder to "break into" because they are more appealing places to invest. You seem to think that low property values are an advantage for metro areas. They may benefit individual investors, but they are a measure of a metros failure as an economy.

Making excuses for Cincinnati's stagnation is part of it's problem. It discourages people from seeing it as it really is.

Every society has an elite. It's just part of human society. But human societies vary greatly and elites therefore vary greatly. This explains how power has generally worked in America. https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html. Cincinnnati's elite is dominated by extended families as befits a clannish and traditional place. It functions like a non-violent mafia is many ways. The Joseph Family, the Castellinis?,the Lindners, and others who are invested mostly in local real estate. While such powerful families may not be entirely without power in other older stagnant metros, but such political/economic dynasties simply don't exist in the fastest growing metros. Not even in Columbus or Indianapolis. Their elites are more diverse and visible. Columbus' elite is who you'd expect it to be...the c-suite of the metros largest corporations and key administrators at OSU. The recent fall of Les Wexler in Columbus is a perfect example of what happens when someone attempts to dominate a growing city. Their efforts fail because personal loyalties don't matter when there's much more at stake economically with all the growth opportunities happening. Personal loyalties have more power when the pie isn't growing and the only opportunity for personal enrichment come from dividing the pie different. That's how Cincinnati works.

My argument is that Cincinnati's elite is not interested in selling Cincinnati...period. They don't want new people, businesses, capital, ideas, or investors muscling in on the nice little operation they've got going here. They don't care about low prices because they take their cut off the top and leave the rest to the locals who'll accept anything.

Who's "obsessed"? This forum is about housing markets. Comparing a city to Cleveland, Oklahoma City, or Kansas City is tantamount to saying 'Look, we aren't the absolute worst housing markets, there are housing markets that are worse." It's dancing around the fact that Cincinnati's housing market is very weak and that property in Cincinnati is seriously undervalued.

The article suggests that there is a low number of apartment building sales in Cincinnati, so 50% of a small number of transactions is not necessarily significant. It supports the idea that outsiders buying in Cincinnati are bargain hunting for income properties, not buying property that they think will increase in value. Buffalo?! Memphis?! Comparing Cincinnati to smaller metros that are amongst the most troubled in the country?! Talk about damning with faint praise...Again, circling the wagons and pretending that Cincinnati is not drifting downward, that it's not in trouble, is not the answer. Detroit, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis have significantly higher populations and are all troubled metros, too. Cincinnatians' defensiveness is the single biggest cause of Cincinnati's problems, not any failure of outsiders to appreciate it's heritage and special sense of place. Cincinnatians are responsible for Cincinnati.

We have clear measures of the extent to which people "value" Cincinnati....the price of its real estate and number of transactions. Those prices are an equilibrium between supply and demand. It shows how much it means to them. Residential, commercial, and industrial property in Cincinnati remain cheaper than any metro its size in America.....cheaper than than some metros that are quite a bit smaller, too. This uncomfortable fact cannot be explained away. What matters is the total value of transactions of "out of state investors" in Cincinnati apartments? That'll show to what extent those buyers are bargain hunters from more expensive markets seeking to take advantage of Cincinnati's low property values. This article bemoans the lack of transactions for apartment buildings despite local demand for decent apartments. https://rejournals.com/lack-of-inventory-only-thing-slowing-cincinnati-apartment-market/.