COLUMBUS, Ohio — It probably doesn't take a Zillow ranking to know just how hot the Columbus housing market is.
“Due to supply and demand and Intel bringing a lot of employees in, and it's really not just Intel. We see a lot of things that have residual effects of Intel, the Amazons, a lot of data centers coming in. Columbus is growing,” said Cutler Realty Group Realtor Shaun Simpson.
Columbus is number three on Zillow's hottest market list for 2024, just behind Cincinnati at number two.
“We're not seeing what we saw a few years ago with 30-40 offers coming in, but we are still seeing great activity because that buyer pool shrank down with the interest rates at the same time, we are still dealing with a small inventory,” Simpson explained.
Simpson explains it's not just Licking County feeling the housing boom from the incoming data centers.
“It impacts everyone. We are sitting in Powell now and I did three transactions with people moving in from California. To us, that 40-minute drive sounds absurd to drive from Powell to Newark or on the east side. To someone from California, 40 minutes is a walk in the park for them,” Simpson said.
Simpson argues while the higher interest rates have prevented some from buying in the past few months, that will change soon, making for tougher competition.
“We are going to see people that left the market because of high interest rates start coming back to the market. We are probably never going to see 3% again,” he said.
Simpson says cities like Columbus need to work on more affordable housing or the hot market will become an impossible market for first-time home buyers.
“We need our municipalities to get more creative to work with developers. The NIMBY aspect is really hurting our city right now. City council in Columbus is working really hard right now on affordable housing and we need to start to loosen some of those reigns. The only way we are going to get more affordable housing is more multi-family,” Simpson said.