Parsons Real Estate Group

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Downtown Living

Posted by Mike Parsons
July 28, 2006 at 01:16 AM

Columbus has really made a push to promote downtown living in the last few years. City officials have offered tax abatements to businesses and homeowners. Their goals are to build 10,000 new downtown homes within the next 10 years, develop a riverfront park system, and add jobs to stabilize the office market and accommodate the growing population. The website DowntownColumbus.com does a great job of framing the city’s goals as well as shows off some of the new and existing downtown loft, and apartment developments. The tax abatement on many of these projects allows potential homeowners to afford more home while forgiving the majority of the homeowners taxes for a specific period of time, often 10 years. You can search many of these properties on our MLS Home Search by choosing: Condo/Townhome and Zip Code: 43125.

Resale on these units have done ok over the last couple of years but is somewhat uncertain for the next 5-7 years as supply grows in the downtown market place. One thing is for certain, when looking at cities that are more mature than Columbus across the US, downtown real estate has been the highest valued real estate in the city, and is poised for the most long term appreciation. Some things to consider when shopping for a downtown condo are proximity to entertainment / arena district / short north, PARKING (garage/spaces/how close), is the developer maintaining an interest in any of the common areas, # of bedrooms (2 will be better than 1 at resale time), and window views.

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