Deep Dive Into Data Finds Best of the ’Burbs By Bill Ferguson Jr.
Cincy’s 13th annual “Rating the Burbs” project examined hundreds of spreadsheets and websites in gathering the thousands of data points to determine the Top 50 Communities, 35 Top Public School Systems and 50 Safest Neighborhoods in the eight-county Greater Cincinnati region. We began with the most recent available data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and Population Estimates Program, which update the 2010 decennial census annually in several categories. Most data were updated through 2017 for this year’s survey. We sift through data on more than 270 villages, cities, townships, Census County Divisions and Census Designated Places
in Boone, Butler, Campbell, Clermont, Dearborn, Hamilton, Kenton and Warren counties, leaving almost 140 jurisdictions of 1,000 or more population. The Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati, the Northern Kentucky Association of Realtors and the Southeastern Indiana Board of Realtors provide median home-sale prices. For communities unavailable through those three organizations, sales are gathered from county auditors. Crime statistics are based on the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The FBI lists four categories of property crime and four categories of violent crime, with the breakdown of the latest community
numbers coming from 2018. For areas not reporting to the FBI (reporting is voluntary), we check community and state websites, and contact our county sheriffs’ offices and township, city and village police departments. County auditors, treasurers and property valuation administrators supply propertytax data used to compare taxes in each area for a $100,000 house. Seventy school districts serve students in the eight-county area, and we scoured state report cards, state education department websites and school district websites for data, and we also made public-records requests to the state departments of education themselves. n
City Home Prices Continue to Soar Over Past 5 Years By Bill Ferguson Jr. ge an Ch e % om ar n H ice Ye ia Pr 5- ed le M Sa in
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Evanston again tops the list of city neighborhoods with the largest gains in median home-sale prices—for the third year in a row—during a period in which home prices in city neighborhoods continued big gains. Evanston’s 2018 median price skyrocketed more than eight times the 2013 median price, to $102,450 from $12,000. Twelve city neighborhoods experienced at least a doubling of prices from 2013 through last year. In addition to Evanston, four neighborhoods—Spring Grove, Avondale, Price Hill and Hartwell—all tripled or more in median prices. Each year, the Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati (MLS) provides home sales for the City of Cincinnati for our “Rating the Burbs” cover story/project. Most statistics that we use to evaluate the suburbs—all areas outside the city limits—are not readily available on the micro level for the 52 city neighborhoods. The MLS breakdown consists of 38 areas, which do not correspond exactly to the 52 neighborhoods, but some areas are true neighborhoods. To the right are the 15 city areas with 20 or more sales that experienced the largest price gains from 2013 to 2018:
Evanston
58
$102,450
$12,000
753.75%
Spring Grove
24
$114,000
$26,600
328.57%
Avondale
74
$153,000
$44,750
241.90%
Price Hill
172
$62,000
$18,500
235.14%
Hartwell
36
$105,500
$34,125
209.16%
Madisonville
160
$139,250
$50,750
174.38%
Bond Hill
67
$76,000
$28,000
171.43%
Roselawn
43
$102,500
$38,500
166.23%
Fairmount
23
$24,000
$10,000
140.00%
Sayler Park
55
$109,000
$50,000
118.00%
Westwood
283
$100,000
$46,100
116.92%
City
50
$329,500
$160,000
105.94%
Kennedy Heights
62
$148,950
$78,000
90.96%
College Hill
133
$122,900
$64,500
90.54%
Northside
163
$181,000
$99,500
81.91%
(Downtown / OTR / Pendleton / Queensgate / West End)
Source: Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati