Affordable
What is the median home price in your city?
Whitehall is benefitting from being one of the last places in central Ohio where a shopper can still buy a home for under $200,000. Its stock of modest ranches, bungalows and Cape Cods built in the middle of last century provides an affordable destination for firsttime buyers or those looking to downsize.
"Whitehall is a magnet of affordability," said Kathy Chiero, an agent with Keller Williams Greater Columbus Realty, whose team has sold several Whitehall homes over the past few years.
"Whitehall may not be hip. This is largely a price-driven immigration — younger buyers especially, who simply can't afford elsewhere. But when you get enough of that, it really matters. They start to fix up homes and others come."
Those who were drawn to Whitehall by affordability say they stay for other reasons.
Whitehall's appeal goes beyond affordability
When Grisham Blake started looking in 2020 for his first home, he quickly realized his under-$200,000 budget kept him out of some areas he enjoyed such as the Short North, Upper Arlington and Gahanna.
Instead, his real-estate agent, James Culwell, with Red 1 Realty, suggested he look at Whitehall.
"I told some of my colleagues at work, they're in their 50s, all of them had this pale look on their face, like, 'What are you doing? Why would you move there?' " Blake said. "I said, 'Why shouldn't I?' "
In October, 2020, Blake toured a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,100square-foot house in Whitehall that had been fully renovated. He offered $150,000 — $5,000 over asking price and enough to beat out six other offers.
A year and a half later, he has no regrets.
"What my colleagues said about Whitehall seemed at odds with what I found," said Blake, 26, who moved to Ohio from New York City.
"People told me there would be crazy people living next to me, that it would be noisy. I don't know what they were really talking about. My neighbors are great, there has not been one single weird thing."
Now that he's there, Blake has found advantages to living in Whitehall such as the proximity to the airport, Interstate 270, Downtown and elsewhere.
Culwell, Blake's agent who recommended Whitehall, has noticed the same things, along with an upward momentum in the city.
"It's close to everything, and accessible, and the mayor's office has made a good effort to make the area better. They've improved a lot and gotten rid of some eyesores. Transportation is good there, there's a new library, new school investments, just a lot going on. If you can be OK with the smaller ranch home floorplans, you've got a good investment."
Devin Brown wanted to be so sure he was making the right decision that he attended Whitehall City Council meetings before buying a home last fall with his fiancee, Brittney Judhan.
"Before we closed on our house, we started going to local city council meetings to find out what the area had going on," said Brown, a 28-year-old Coldwell Banker real estate agent who is studying real estate and Urban Analysis/city and Regional Planning at Ohio State University.
"We really liked what we saw and
heard there," Brown said.
"The city is making a concerted effort to attract businesses and residents. With everything it has to offer, I think people are starting to see Whitehall as a buying option. We can get to the airport in five minutes, and Bexley and Downtown fast. Broad (Street) and Hamilton (Road) just saw a major development and another one is planned. I see it becoming more and more attractive."
‘I didn't realize there was just a hidden gem in Whitehall'
Brown and Judhan found an older, four-bedroom home with mostly new mechanicals listed for $150,000. They offered $5,000 over asking price and bought the home, which they have since been renovating.
Brown and Judhan are far from alone in renovating homes in Whitehall. Henry Diyanni, who is retired from Diyanni Custom Homes and is now renovating a Whitehall home for Victory Ministries, is "amazed" by the amount of construction he sees in the community.
"I see new decks, new roofs going on, new windows going in," he said. "I see homes going up for sale, and they sell in a week. It's changed so much over here, I'm just surprised. I've been around this area 30 years, and Whitehall wasn't always the greatest place to go but now I see young kids, and people pushing babies around, and new parks. … It's pretty exciting to see what's going on."
While the lion's share of Whitehall homes are 1,000 to 1,500 square feet, the city is also home to far more expansive homes, especially near the Columbus Country Club on East Broad Street.
"I didn't realize there was just a hidden gem in Whitehall, one of the most underappreciated areas in Columbus, between the country club and Fairway Boulevard," said Brown. "I had no idea they had houses like that in Whitehall."
In fact, despite Whitehall's reputation for small, affordable homes, more than 30 homes have sold in the city in the past two years for more than $250,000, and two have sold for at least $450,000.
Chiero, the Keller Williams agent, listed a home on Doral Avenue, near Fairway Boulevard, last July. The fourbedroom, three-bath home was built in 1974, and was in very good condition but hadn't been seriously updated.
She listed it for $250,000. Over the next few days, the home drew 41 showings and seven offers including the winning bid of $265,000. The home could have sold for more, Chiero said, but the winning bid included an offer to clear out the home for the owners, who were ready to move to Florida.
For Chiero, the home illustrates how Whitehall's affordability is drawing interest.
"That house would have been $350,000 in Westerville," she said.
By building new apartments and houses, Whitehall hopes to remain affordable
Whitehall officials have made a deliberate effort to improve and expand the city's housing stock, some of which has suffered from neglect and from serving as rental properties for years. (About 62% of the city's housing, including apartments, is for rent.)
The city is about to start demolishing Woodcliff condominiums on East Broad Street and Hamilton Road, long an eyesore, to make way for hundreds of new apartments.
In all, about 2,300 housing units have been built in the past four years, or are planned for the city, said City Administrator Zach Woodruff.
"Our goal for the next five years is to match that number," he said. "Creating additional housing units, increasing density and the offerings in Whitehall is one of the strategies to maintain Whitehall's advantage of being affordable."
Most of the new housing is apartments, but the city has also added some single-family homes, despite lacking the land for a new subdivision. The city partnered with Rockford Homes to build seven new homes, and will be the site of one of two homes built on the plans of a design contest called Next Home.
After living for more than a year in Whitehall, Blake is happy to sing the praises of the city to his skeptical colleagues and others.
"I tell them it could not have gone more perfectly in terms of finding this place and getting in at the right time," he said. "Come spend some time, and I'll show you around."
jweiker@dispatch.com @Jimweiker
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