I'm moving to Columbus, OH

[adamant]

My girlfriend and I are going to be moving to Columbus, OH for medical and graduate school at OSU. We're headed out for a few weekends coming up to search out a house to buy.

Just wanted to say hi to those already there and open the thread for any tips or tricks for getting by in Central Ohio.

 

[thebikingengineer]

Welcome! I'm sure you'll like it. I'm just finishing up at OSU. Where all will you be looking for a house?

 

[johnniegold]

I think you will love it. I went to school in Columbus in the mid-80's. Great little big city. Make sure you visit German Village during Oktoberfest. Good luck.

 

[adamant]

Welcome! I'm sure you'll like it. I'm just finishing up at OSU. Where all will you be looking for a house?

Preferably walking distance to campus, or at least on a bus line.

 

[FreezerBurns]

Hope you like college football!

Be sure to plan a weekend road trip North to the lake (Erie) in Autumn. Gorgeous.

 

[_JP_]

I think you will love it. I went to school in Columbus in the mid-80's. Great little big city.

You won't recognize it now. The city has grown so much that it became the 15th largest in population in the country. Even the campus area up and down High Street is very different from what you remember. A lot of the bars are gone now.

Preferably walking distance to campus, or at least on a bus line.

Consider the area around Third Ave just south of campus. It is an up and coming neighborhood where a lot of revitalization has happened and is still going on. Just south of that is the pricier Short North and Victorian Village area. East of campus around N 4th is also a good are. All of those locations are within walking distance, depending on how far you consider that to be. And remember that the main OSU campus is hugh and takes a lot of time to wolk around in.

 

[Aaron W.]

Welcome to the buckeye state! You'll find the rual area still close once you get out past 270, that's the columbus bypass,and fall is really nice around here. Go down south to the pumpkin fest in circleville oh. Learn 670 and 315 and you can get around pretty good as far as travel. Good luck!

 

[r.mutt]

Born in raised in Clintonville, just north of OSU's campus. Now I'm in Cleveland for school.
Clintonville is an amazing community. Houses range from 100k to 500k.

There are a few that are above that but they are abnormally large for the community. One example being the Davis Estate, that's what I refer to it as anyways. They bought their neighbors house, tore both houses down and built one monstrosity of a house in its place. The mother is a real estate agent, and so is her daughter who i went to school with. Riding the coattails of her mother to fortune.

 

[thebikingengineer]

I'm on North Fourth and Lane (ish) and right on the East Residential bus line. There's a couple of houses that are always up for sale in the general area. Stay north of 14th and you should be fine. Any closer to campus and you get into a very heavy college party scene that you may or may not want to live near. I like to get my sleep when I choose so I'm alright with the slightly longer walk (or motorcycle ride) into campus.

 

[SRock]

I never lived in OH, but I thought I'd say congrats and good luck!

 

[Oklahoma]

I can honestly say I have never been to Ohio.

 

[adamant]

Are there any neighborhoods that you (imagining that you are my girlfriend- short, doesn't look threatening) would not feel comfortable walking around in the evening?

 

[thebikingengineer]

Off the top of my head North 4th and summit south of 14th or 15th down until probably 3rd or so are pretty iffy. Just east of I-71 can be bad too. Other than that it's all pretty decent. As long as you're looking at houses on a weekday it will be readily apparent which places you don't want to buy in. Before you put an offer in it might be a good idea to call the police department and see what their feeling on the area is, my parents have dodged a few bad neighborhoods that way.

 

[adamant]

dang, saw a nice house on the 1200 block of summit.

By iffy, what do you mean?

 

[adamant]

Do you happen to know the addresses of some of those houses for sale that you see on your walk? I'm curious in case they aren't ones that show up online.

 

[andrew98]

My girlfriend and I lived in Columbus for 3.5 years up until about 8 months ago. It's a great city. She attended OSU for her PhD, and I was out of town for work quite a bit. Her safety was one of my concerns, and we always felt very safe in our neighborhood. We lived in Clintonville on N. High Street, north of N. Broadway. The nearest cross street is Brevoort Road (so Brevoort and N. High). The neighborhood east of N. High street there is wonderful. It's full of great people, mostly young families and retired folks. We knew a lot of our neighbors. If you go a little further north, but stay on the east side of N. High St., there are some smaller, more affordable homes, but the neighborhood is still great, pretty much all the way up to Worthington (another part of town that's exceptionally nice). I don't know as much about what's on the west side of N. High Street, but I assume much of that is nice too, although north of Whetstone it's more low-rent apartment complexes on the west of N. High, so I'd avoid that area. We have friends that bought a little house north of us on the east side of N. High while they were both grad students. They're actually moving away from Columbus sometime soon.

Anyway, that part of town is very safe. N. High Street is one of the major bus lines through town. My girlfriend either rode her bike along the walking/bike trail that runs between Whetstone park and Campus or took the bus (students ride free). It's about a 2.5 mile trip (15 to 20 minutes by either bus or bike). There's a really nice, big park (Whetstone) a couple blocks away, along with a library. A Chase bank and coffee shop are right on N. High Street, across from Brevoort Road, and an Auto Zone is about a block away. It's also only about a 5 minute walk to a Kroger grocery. There's shopping, gas stations and groceries both north and south of Brevoort.

I wouldn't live in any other part of town, especially if you're going to campus all the time, and I say that after having friends that lived all over that city, including the Short North (south of campus), German and Victorian Villages (also both south of campus). Immediately north and south of campus, as well as right by campus, are really sketchy. You'll see it and know what I'm talking about. It's all undergrad housing, and there's quite a bit of crime in those areas.

Best of luck, and feel free to send me a PM if you need any other info or advice.

-Andy

 

[Sterling Cooper]

Ohio State alum (undergrad) here. Congrats and welcome to the Buckeye family. Take a look at the Victorian Village (just south of campus and extremely convenient to the med school complex) and German Village (just south of the downtown core) neighborhoods. Both are great, gentrified and safe neighborhoods that are full of good restaurants and bars.

 

[thebikingengineer]

dang, saw a nice house on the 1200 block of summit.

By iffy, what do you mean?

N. 4th in that area is a pretty high crime area. Lots of police activity and lots of shady characters. They tend to stick to those areas though. My parents were looking for a place around there, called the police department, and were told that if there were children the should not buy the house.

Summit should be ok, that's near 5th right? You should be far enough southwest that you shouldn't have issues. I know people who have lived in the apartments over there and they didn't have any issues. Depending on which side of the street you're on you might get some spill-over from the liquor store on amateur nights, but other than that it's mostly college kids.

Do you happen to know the addresses of some of those houses for sale that you see on your walk? I'm curious in case they aren't ones that show up online.

Off the top of my head I couldn't say. Next time I'm walking by I'll check. They were around N. 4th and 20th. There was one place that my friend looked at on 19th that was pretty nice. He wasn't happy with what they were asking for it, but it was a nice place.

 

[adamant]

The house I was talking about is just north of 5th Ave. Looking at google maps, it is due west of "Mid America State Liquor".

How is the "Harrison West" area? (Between 5th and 2nd and west of Neil)

 

[thebikingengineer]

Harrison West should be Victorian Village or Short North area. I actually lived around there a year or two as a kid. Really a very nice area, if you can find a place that's probably a good choice.

When you're looking at places the gut test should be all you need to decide whether or not an area is good. IMO it's pretty apparent which places you don't want to be, and a block of distance makes a huge difference around there.