Southern Orchards is an area that has seen a lot of interest in Columbus Ohio. I myself hadn't done a flip here until 2019. Since the year is over, it's a great time to look at these areas. In this post I'm going to look at Southern orchard Single family homes.

Where is Southern Orchards? It's on the south side of Columbus directly adjacent to Schumacher Place and German Village. It's bounded by Livingston Avenue on the North, Linwood Avenue on the East, Whittier On the South, and Parsons on the west. Here is a quick map of the area:

Let's get into some data, shall we? In 2018, 94 homes sold in this area with an average price of $144,404.17. Homes spent an average of 23.87 days on the market. Personally, I like to watch inventory over the 200k mark because I think it's a very healthy way to track the market. Looking at these homes, of those 94, 31 sold over 200k. Ironically, homes in this price point spent an average days on market of 17.94 days (shorter than the overall area). My guess is because the majority of these homes are remodeled. The highest sale price was $300,000 in 2018 (927 Linwood Avenue). Here's a quick map of the areas:

Now let's look at 2019. I also am going to break it down by quarter so that we can see some velocity and see where the market might be going this year. First, let's look at total homes sold. A very consistent 93 homes were sold in this same area in 2019. The average of these homes were $166,056.09. These homes spent an average of 35.45 days on the market.

Based on this data, that means the average home appreciated 14.99% year over year. Of course the lower the price point that you bought the more it would have appreciated. Now let's look at the inventory over 200k again.

34 homes sold above 200k. These homes averaged 33.5 days on the market. The highest sale price in 2019 was $345,000 (868 S Ohio Avenue). Let's break this price point down a little bit more by quarter and just see what the market is doing.

Q1 2019:

10 Homes Closed over 200k. Average of these 10 homes was $230,330. Days on market was 51.3. Highest sale price was $266,500 and the average price per sq ft of these 10 homes was $155.25.

Q2 2019:

12 homes closed over 200k. Average of these 12 homes was $252,270.83. Days on market was 24.42. Highest sale price was $345,000 and the average price per sq ft of these 12 homes was $156.07.

Q3 2019:

6 homes closed over 200k. Average of these 6 homes was $256,295.83. Days on market was 28.33. Highest sale price was $318,000 and the average price per sq ft of these 6 homes was $179.81.

Q4 2019:

6 homes closed over 200k. Average of these 6 homes was $263,733.33. Days on market was 27.17. Highest sale price was $289,900 and the average price per sq ft of these 6 homes was $163.95.

Q1 2020 Year to Date (not complete quarter):

3 homes closed over 200k. Average of these 3 homes was $300,333.33. Days on market was 54.33. Highest sale price was $336,000 and the average price per sq ft of these 3 homes was $150.17.

Currently there are 11 homes for sale over 200k that are "active". Based on historical figures, that would be 3-4 months of supply which is still a seller's market in southern orchards.

So what does this all mean?

Well, I personally don't like to make interpretations and assumptions. But based on two years of historical figures, it seems like southern orchards is a very steady market. The year over year numbers show appreciation and consistent sales. Keep an eye out for this area for sure. One trend I'm seeing is an unrenovated house that used to cost 50k now is going for close to 100k. Be careful making speculations. If it was me i'd be focused on the smaller homes and cheaper homes in this neighborhood so rehabs are smaller and you can get in and out quicker. But even based on the January 2020 numbers, southern orchards still seems to be strong market to invest in.

Robert Ellis

Columbus, Ohio

9 Votes