Fruitful renewal
Buyers find Southern Orchards homes ripe for renovation
After heading to college in 1976, Gary Ransom was happy to leave the Southern Orchards neighborhood he grew up in.
“In those first 10 or so years after coming out of college, there was a drastic change in the neighborhood, all for the worse,” said Ransom, now 60.
But a few years ago, something happened to change his
mind. Ransom was invited to a friend’s house in the neighborhood east of Parsons Avenue and south of Livingston Avenue.
“She said she bought a house on South Ohio and I thought, ‘Oh, someone really took her.’ But when I went there and knocked on the door, I was blown away. The house was modern, with an open floor plan, a great place.”
Ransom was so impressed that four years ago, he decided to return to his old neighborhood for good. He paid $135,000 — half the price of the New Albany home he sold — for a brand-new
home a few blocks east of Parsons Avenue.
“The neighborhood’s changing dramatically,” said Ransom, a public-safety professional. “Every time you go down the street, you see five or six homes being renovated or rehabbed.”
For years, the renewal that lifted older neighborhoods west of Parsons such as Merion Village and Schumacher Place seemed to hit a wall at Parsons.
But that wall has come crumbling down.
While windows covered in plywood, yards strewn with trash and security bars on doors can still be found throughout Southern Orchards, such blighted properties now sit next door to young professionals, landscaped yards and topto-bottom renovations.
This year, four Southern Orchards homes have sold for more than $200,000 — a threshold unthinkable a few years ago — and three others are currently listed for that much.
“It’s really amazing to see how fast it’s happening,” said Liz Norris, who bought a Southern Orchards home about four blocks east of Parsons two years ago.
“When I moved in, we had a vacant house two doors down that sat vacant for the first year. Now it’s been renovated and flipped, and it seems like every other house that looks like it might have been vacant is now well-maintained.”
In fact, eight years ago, 109 out of 409 houses in the area were vacant, according to Healthy Homes, a nonprofit housing organization led by Nationwide Children's Hospital. Last year, 33 homes were empty.
Southern Orchards and other nearby neighborhoods, which were developed in the early 1900s, have benefited tremendously from the expansion of the hospital, which now employs almost 8,900 people on its campus.
Through the Healthy Homes program, Nationwide Children's and others have also embarked on an urban experiment: revitalizing a once-neglected neighborhood without forcing low-income people out. More than 35 percent of Southern Orchards households live in poverty, and the median family income in the area is about $30,000, according to 2017 census estimates. About 56 percent of homes in the neighborhood are rentals.
Since its inception in 2008, Healthy Homes has renovated 90 houses and built 23 new ones in the neighborhood; 159 homes have received new roofs or siding. All programs are targeted at those who make modest or middle incomes.
“From the very beginning, this has always been about creating a mixed-income community,” said Healthy Homes Housing Director Gretchen West. “We’re very intentional that current residents who lived here can stay here, so we need to help provide housing for those who can’t afford a $200,000 house.”
Kayla Merchant, a 30-yearold writer who works at DHL Supply Chain, is waiting on renovations to be finished to move into a Healthy Homes house she recently bought.
She decided to purchase in Southern Orchards after she watched her rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Schumacher Place rise from $450 a month to $1,000 during the past seven years.
“I was hoping to keep (the home price) under $150,000 and that was completely impossible in Schumacher,” Merchant said. “I saw this house listed and thought, ‘I’ll give it a look,’ but it was just terrible, in a state of complete disrepair. My friends said it looked like the ‘Amityville Horror’ house. But I said, ‘I want to make an offer.’”
Even though she hasn't moved in yet, Merchant already represents Southern Orchards on the Southside Area Commission.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time the last six or seven months in Southern Orchards,” she said. “I know my neighbors a lot. It’s a great area. People have this misperception about Southern Orchards.”
Experts say Merchant’s experience is typical of what’s driving Southern Orchards’ growth, as buyers and renters turn to the neighborhood after seeing prices in other renovated urban areas.
“There are the buyers who want to live in the Short North or Italian Village or German Village but can’t afford $250 a square foot,” said Misty Linn, an agent with Core Ohio Realty Advisors who has bought and sold several Southern Orchards homes.
“I would say the area started to take off about three years ago, sporadically with investors and Healthy Homes,” Linn added. “Now it’s up and down every street.”
Linn works with investors to buy and renovate homes. She is listing a home now on South Ohio for $235,000.
When her investor bought it from the Columbus Land Bank for $13,386 in the spring, it was covered in ivy, boarded up and damaged by water. Now, it has new floors, paint, kitchen, bath, roof, windows, electrical and HVAC systems, and an open layout.
“We’re taking a house that sat for 10 or 12 years, and was boarded up and neglected, and breathing new life back into it,” Linn said.
Two other houses now listed for more than $200,000 illustrate how fast real-estate is changing in the area. One, on South 22nd Street, sold in February for $41,900 and is now listed for $224,900 after a complete renovation. The other, on South 18th Street, is listed for $225,000 after selling for $86,100 seven years ago.
Such dramatic price changes continue to draw investors such as Ethan Temianka into the neighborhood. In his case, the phrase is literally true: He moved from southern California over the summer to oversee about 200 homes his company, Patriarch, owns in the area. He is now renovating a Southern Orchards home to call his own.
“That house has been flipped,” Temianka said, pointing to a home during a recent drive through the neighborhood. “Those are being renovated. That one’s ours.”
He and others know deals are getting harder to find in Southern Orchards.
“A house that needs a complete rehab is selling for $50,000 to $80,000 now down there,” said Christopher White, an agent with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services who has worked in Southern Orchards. “Investors were used to paying $30,000 to $40,000 for something that was at least habitable.”
White thinks the proximity to Nationwide Children's and Downtown, coupled with a great stock of housing, will keep Southern Orchards humming.
“Other agents told me, ‘Chris, it’ll never happen,’” White said. “I think this whole thing will go all the way to Lockbourne (Road), and in two years, it will go to Driving Park.”