How We Find the Best of the ’Burbs
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By Bill Ferguson Jr. Cincy’s “Rating the Burbs” is an intensive data-driven project in which we sift through hundreds of spreadsheets and websites in gathering the thousands of data points to determine the Top 50 Communities, 35 Top Public School Systems and 50 Safest Neighborhoods in the eight-county Greater Cincinnati region. For the 12th annual ratings, we began with the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and Population Estimates Program (most recent data), which updates the 2010 decennial census annually in several categories. Most data are updated through 2016 for this year’s survey.
More than 270 villages, cities, townships, Census Count y Divisions and Census Designated Places exist in Boone, Butler, Campbell, Clermont, Dearborn, Hamilton, Kenton and Warren counties, and data are gathered and sorted, leaving almost 140 jurisdictions of 1,000 or more population. The Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati, the Northern Kentucky Association of Realtors and the Southeastern Indiana Board of Realtors provide median home-sale prices. Crime statistics are based on the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The FBI lists four categories of property crime and four categories of violent crime, with
the breakdown of the latest community numbers coming from 2016. For areas not reporting to the FBI, we check community and state websites, and contact our county sheriffs’ offices and township, city and village police departments. Property-tax data used to compare taxes in each area for a $100,000 house come from county auditors, treasurers and property valuation administrators. Seventy school districts serve students in the eight-county area, and we scoured state report cards, state education department websites and school district websites for data, and we also made public-records requests to the state departments of education themselves. n
Evanston Again Leads City for Home-Price Gains By Bill Ferguson Jr.
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For the second straight year, Evanston topped the list of city neighborhoods with the largest gains in median home-sale prices, more than tripling from 2012 to 2017. Evanston prices rose to $55,000 in 2017, compared with $18,000 in 2012. Last year, prices in Evanston almost quadrupled on a comparative basis. Most city neighborhoods experienced big increases in median prices of home sales in 2017, compared with five years earlier, similar to many of their suburban counterparts. Each year, the Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati (MLS) provides home sales for the City of Cincinnati for our “Rating the Burbs” cover story/project. Most statistics that we use to evaluate the suburbs are not readily available on the micro level for the 52 city neighborhoods. The MLS breakdown consists of 38 areas, which do not correspond exactly to the 52 neighborhoods, but some areas are true neighborhoods. Eleven of the 38 areas experienced at least a doubling of median prices from 2011 to 2017, although three of the areas had fewer than 20 sales. To the right are the 15 city areas with 20 or more sales that experienced the largest price gains from 2012 to 2017:
Evanston
55
$55,000
$18,000
205.56%
Price Hill
218
$45,000
$17,035
164.16%
Bond Hill
65
$71,500
$28,000
155.36%
Hartwell
35
$81,000
$34,000
138.24%
Northside
160
$169,950
$74,500
128.12%
Avondale
73
$153,000
$68,000
125.00%
Roselawn
46
$79,860
$37,000
115.84%
College Hill
168
$110,750
$54,950
101.55%
City
56
$297,450
$158,000
88.26%
Kennedy Heights
72
$150,000
$80,000
87.50%
Carthage
36
$54,500
$30,000
81.67%
Spring Grove
26
$47,250
$26,500
78.30%
Madisonville
156
$117,500
$70,450
66.78%
Covedale
171
$95,900
$57,500
66.78%
Westwood
281
$91,500
$57,100
60.25%
(Downtown / OTR / Pendleton / Queensgate / West End)
Source: Multiple Listing Service of Greater Cincinnati