Long time lurker (I have a UO sticker from 2004 around here somewhere), occasionally poster… I need to get back into participating here again, this place is great! This feels like a good venue to have this discussion, since I think I’m likely to get the kind of insight I’m looking for.

 

My wife and I currently live in Granville with our 3-year-old son. Granville is hard to beat for a small Ohio town, we live right in the heart of the village so it’s quite walkable - downtown and groceries are a few short blocks away. People are nice, the politics (in the village proper) agreeably blue without much hippie nonsense, and the schools very highly rated. Unfortunately, our house isn’t really optimal anymore. Rather than moving elsewhere in Granville, we keep coming back to wanting something a little different, and a little closer to civilization.

 

Before COVID, we found ourselves spending much of our free time around Columbus - COSI, the zoo, shopping, and (most importantly) interesting food (Indian food, Japan Marketplace, North Market). 161 makes the trip pretty reasonable, but it’s still far enough to be weekends-only. An added benefit, Columbus excursions provide an opportunity for our son to be around people of other cultures, lack of diversity around here is a sore subject (not a knock on the people who live here, mostly just the reality of this being a small, somewhat isolated Ohio town).

 

I’m permanent work-from-home and just need good internet (preferably fiber). My wife works at the Newark branch of a “large educational institution”. Even post-COVID, she likely won’t need to be on-site more than a few days a week unless she wants to be, and she can somewhat set her own schedule to avoid rush hour commutes. Her long term career trajectory suggests there is a good chance she'll end up working at the Columbus branch of said institution anyway.

 

We’re in no hurry to do anything, but it seems like a good time to start thinking about our options and zero in on some places to look deeper into. We’d normally just start going to open houses, but prefer to wait until the world gets back to normal. Ideally, it would be nice to settle-in somewhere before our son starts school in two years or so (and certainly before first grade). We’re essentially Cincinnati-area natives (with family still there, being 1/2 hour closer is another benefit of a move) so we only have a passing familiarly of Columbus neighborhoods - and no real insight on what it would be like to live in them, or how they are perceived.

 

What we are looking for in a house/neighborhood:

 

• Housing stock with some personality, around 2000-2500 sq ft, budget probably $400-450K. Ready for a change of pace from our current 1906 house - probably something built between 1940 and 1990 so we get a little less maintenance, a more modern basement, but mature trees and an established neighborhood feel.

• Neighborhood without the expectation to keep the lawn absolutely pristine (either legally required or dirty looks from the neighbors), but restrictive enough that someone can’t tear down the house next door and replace it with a giant McMansion.

• At minimum, places to walk within the neighborhood. Access to bike trails is a big plus. Walkable to businesses (within a mile or so) of any kind is a huge plus.

• Reasonably safe

• Reasonably kid-friendly

• Decent schools with at least some diversity (and some economic diversity) to give a better rounded experience

• Relatively blue areas are a plus, or at least reasonably purple. Part of what kicked off looking now is being able to drive around and see what kind of signs people have in their yards.

 

Vague impressions so far:

 

• I’m really liking Worthington. Wide variety of housing stock to chose from that isn’t overly expensive, look to be decent schools. The area surrounding Old Worthington looks very walkable to a nice variety of businesses. Convenient enough to everything we like to do (though not especially close to any one thing), and somewhat reasonable if my wife needs to commute now or in the future. Would really love to live in Rush Creek Village but that looks to be pushing our budget quite a bit, and listings there seem fairly rare.

• My wife is liking Upper Arlington, helped along by the great schools and encouragement from a colleague that lives there. I like it as well (especially south of Lane) but it looks rather expensive. Doesn’t seem a whole lot more diverse than where we are now. Walkability looks pretty mixed depending on location. Might be a bit too suburban, and perhaps a bit too red for our tastes.

• Bexley looks nice as well and urban/walkable, but expensive like UA.

• Grandview Heights looks to warrant more exploration, I’m not sure we’ve ever even been there.

• Beechwold / Clintonville were on our initial list to look into, but schools are a big issue (especially high school). Reading about Clintonville development here made me realize its kind of an overrated area, walkability isn’t great like one would expect with being that close to the city. Houses look to be fairly expensive and small, with most of the same old house stuff we deal with now.

 

Any places I missed we should be considering? Any thoughts on the places already listed?

 

Thanks!

Which high school do Beechwold/Clintonville residents attend? I thought it was Whetstone. As far as schools go if you're referring to Worthington schools as merely decent than you might be a tough customer for public schools.

 

Be aware that Grandview Heights can be very expensive if you want to live in a house built after 1940. That tough-to-deal-with 1910-1930s housing proliferates Grandview just as much as the rest of Ohio and prices reflect that.

37 minutes ago, mrCharlie said:

Grandview Heights looks to warrant more exploration, I’m not sure we’ve ever even been there.

 

That'd be my pick, if I were you.

@GCrites80s This is just the kind of insight I'm looking for! Particularly since the state school report cards aren't available right now, the only quantifiable thing I have to go on is greatschools.org that a lot of the real estate sites use. 

Beechwold/Clintonville do attend Whetstone, which is rated a 2/10 on great schools. I call Worthington decent since the schools are a 7/10, versus UA and Granville are 9/10. I would be more than happy with Worthington, I went to school at a tiny, very unfunded district in Clermont County which (accurately) is rated 3/10. 

 

Definitely not fully against the right older house, we got a bargain on a definite fixer-upper and spend five years doing so. Post-kid though its proven tough finding time to do things right.

Re: teardowns. Do keep in mind that it is somewhat common in both UA and Bexely for older houses to be bulldozed for McMansion-type housing. Diversity is not so good in UA as you perceived. Most of the upper-middle class and higher minorities live in other 'burbs (or Berwick). Grandview Heights is pretty much all white folks as well.

 

It's not so much that the prewar housing in Grandview needs much work (could have old furnaces and no central air though), it's more like you'll have the exact same house you see all over Portsmouth or Ironton for $40K but in Grandview it's $300K. But if you want something larger like seen after the war that's 2000+ square feet that's when it doubles to like $600K.

3 hours ago, mrCharlie said:

@GCrites80s This is just the kind of insight I'm looking for! Particularly since the state school report cards aren't available right now, the only quantifiable thing I have to go on is greatschools.org that a lot of the real estate sites use.

 

Once you narrow down your list of neighborhoods, try to find some locals to talk to about the schools.  The state report cards are not an accurate picture of the quality of any school and should just be scrapped.

And some suburban schools participate in the Win-Win agreement where you technically live in Columbus city limits but attend the suburban school closest to it. Grandview and UA do not so you must be actually in those cities rather than just their zip code. Ones that do participate in Win-Win are Canal Winchester, Groveport Madison, Hamilton Local, Gahanna-Jefferson, New Albany-Plain, Westerville, Dublin, Hilliard and South-Western. Sometimes you can save a little by living in the Columbus city limits while living in a qualifying Columbus property rather than the actual suburb.

 

A lot to this!

4 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

It's not so much that the prewar housing in Grandview needs much work (could have old furnaces and no central air though), it's more like you'll have the exact same house you see all over Portsmouth or Ironton for $40K but in Grandview it's $300K. But if you want something larger like seen after the war that's 2000+ square feet that's when it doubles to like $600K.

 

This sounds a lot like Granville, double the price of the same house down the road in Newark. What makes it a bit worse here is most of the village houses are pre-1920 or so, and since the area was fairly rural they are fairly simplistic and similar in a lot of ways (and probably all built by the same couple of people). We've seen plenty of old houses in Newark that were clearly built to a higher level of sophistication than what we find here. The lack of opportunity for "something different" house wise unless we go older or move away from town is actually another factor driving our thoughts to relocate.

 

Also, great info on the Win-Win agreement, I had no idea that was a thing (it certainly wasn't in the Cincinnati area, at least when I was in school). 

2 hours ago, Foraker said:

 

Once you narrow down your list of neighborhoods, try to find some locals to talk to about the schools.  The state report cards are not an accurate picture of the quality of any school and should just be scrapped.

 

This is great advice. It also has me realizing the important thing for us is the schools are actually good in practice, not just rated highly on paper. From the data I have seen, schools with a wide range of incomes or fairly high number of recent immigrants tend to get dinged in the ratings, but I feel like a school that knows what they are doing could make that diversity a benefit.

One unfortunate thing about the ratings is they seem to be important for resale because they are important for resale...   In this case that works in our favor since we plan on staying wherever we end up long-term, and there is effectively a line of people waiting to buy a house in our current district.

Yeah unfortunately those school rankings can be pretty harsh if there are even a small amount of non-Asian-American minorities around which I think is racist. Like how Bexley gets dinged for that even though the schools are perfectly fine. That's one reason I don't like a lot of school rankings so much.

 

To me one of the most important things with schools is the networking. For example zero of my high school friends that I am still close with (and their parents) have a 4-year degree and I'm sure that has affected me professionally. Sometimes a larger school system that's not 100% blue-collar is better for that as compared to some tiny one that's all rich kids only.