About Cincinnati's Hyde Park

Let's take a look at the housing market in Hyde Park, Oakley, Mt. Lookout and Columbia Tusculum, Ohio...in Cincinnati's close-in urban suburbs. We are grouping them together because they tend to attract the same group of young professional buyers looking for similar properties. The majority of the homes are 80+ years old, with the price range varying from $100-1,000,000.

To give you perspective about the market, the graph shows sales for the past five years, through October 31, 2009. You can easily see the increase in prices and the decrease as the recession strengthened. Part of that price decrease can be attributed to a higher percentage of lower priced listings sold.

With loans harder to acquire, higher priced homes listed at over $450,000 have struggled to find buyers, both because of the inability to sell the buyer's home and the difficulty in getting significant down payments. The median price is lower as a result.

Currently the area has 368 active listings on the market. There are 71 pending sales. Homes sell in an average of 92 days on the market (DOM). If you use the last year's number of sales and compare it to the number of active listings, there are approximately 7.8 months of inventory on the market. Looking only at the number of pending sales to active listings, a more robust market would be anticipated. The National Association of Realtors indicates that six months of inventory is a balanced market.

Mark your calendars for a fun, family time on November 8th from 1-3 pm in Ault Park. This Amazing Race-style event, sponsored by the Cincinnati Parks, incorporates nature education into the activity right in the middle of the Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout areas. Specifically designed for the family with 5-12 year olds, everyone can plan to learn a lot on the Park's trails while having a good time together.

You should meet at the fountain and park rangers will send a family out on the trails every five minutes. For each trip through the woods, you will need to complete certain activities and show those as part of determining winners. Typical activities might be finding a certain kind of leaf or searching for a fossil in the creek.

Small prizes will be awarded. Not only will you learn about nature, best of all, the event is FREE!

Reservations are required so that the Park has enough staff on hand and prizes for the winners. Call 513-761-4313 to set it up for your family!

Kilgour Elementary School is the only school in the Cincinnati Public School District that has received the Excellent with Distinction rating from the State of Ohio Department of Education! 2009 was its second year with that designation.

Long a favorite of families in the Hyde Park and Mt. Lookout areas, the school continues to have the ingredients that make up quality schools...experienced teachers averaging over 15 years on the job with 78% of them having master's degrees, active support from parents and the PTA, and children prepared for learning.

First opened in 1922 as an eight room building, the school was dedicated to John Kilgour because his wife had given the Herschel Avenue land for the school. Thousands of children have now walked its halls, with many additions over the years. When I did my student teaching there under John Stevenson, there were temporary buildings set up in the playground, because of the overflowing numbers of children. Today, the children benefit from the latest addition and a total remodel of the entire building.

Children also have an assortment of special activities at their disposal. Ranging from Intermediate Choir to Keyboarding Club, Spanish Club to Student Council, Scouts to Safety Patrol and Fine Arts Night to Everybody Counts. Yearly, the major fundraiser is the Kilgour Carnival with the recent addition of a 5K Run/Walk.

You may want to read the State Department of Education's Report Card for the school. For further information, contact principal Angela Cook at 513-363-3000.

After you read about such an outstanding school, is it any wonder that the homes in Kilgour Elementary Schools area are in such demand...there is a proven correlation between school quality and home prices.

If you are trying to decide on where to search for a new home in Cincinnati neighborhoods, the local crime statistics will be of interest to you. There is a new FREE website that could answer your questions, www.CrimeReports.com.

When you go to www.CrimeReports.com, you will put in a location and get a nearly real-time report. The report generates a map, so you feel confident that the location was correct, followed by a list of any crimes that have been committed within a specified distance of the subject property. You can ask for all types of crimes or limit it to more serious offenses. Plus you can tell them how far back in time to search.

Currently, the site partners with more than 500 law enforcement agencies, covering over 25% of the population. I was interested that it gave me addresses of the locations where there were crimes, and when that criminal was captured, it tells you when and where they were captured, by what law enforcement agency and the name of the person arrested besides.

At this point, it appears that not all neighborhoods have been entered into the database. Every address I entered in the City of Cincinnati showed up easily. When I entered Newtown, Milford and Wyoming, they showed no crimes. I'd like to think there had been no crime, but assume there has at least been a speeding ticket handed out!

The website also has a valuable system to send automatic email crime alerts to you, the consumer. These alerts can go out on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for your home or business address. All you need to do is enter in a valid address and valid email address. Crime alerts from www.CrimeReports.com could perform a valuable community service as we all work to prevent/reduce crime and avoid being a victim.

Where's Indian Summer? Last year, this time, Cincinnati was just getting out of 90º temperatures and into 80º temperatures. And today it looks like we will have a high of 46º with no higher temperatures in sight.

Now that furnaces are fired up in everyone's homes, it is time for a safety reminder about the potential of carbon monoxide poisoning. It is certainly vital to your family's health to avoid and prevent the gas in our homes.

What exactly is Carbon monoxide? It is a gas that is both colorless and odorless, so it isn't easy to know you have a problem, like you can with natural gas. CO is produced when fuels such as natural gas, oil or propane combust in furnaces, water heaters or stoves. All of these vent the resulting gases, either through chimneys or direct venting. Carbon monoxide can generate dangerous levels when something happens in the venting, through incomplete combustion, improper installation of blockages, leaks or cracks in the venting system.

Here are some tips that homeowners can follow to protect themselves:

• Purchase a CO detector, (both plug-in and battery types are available) and install according to manufacturers instructions.
• If the CO detector activates:
  • shut off all fuel-burning devices
  • open doors and windows
  • if anyone is experiencing fatigue, nausea or confusion, seek medical attention immediately
• Be sure all devices are installed properly and vented to the outside - a good reason for those home inspections we advocate
• Have all repairs to furnaces,water heaters and gas stoves done by licensed contractors. Do not attempt it yourself or rely on a friendly neighbor
• Only use the fuel specified for the device you are using
• inspect flues and chimneys regularly for cracks, leaks and blockages and, while they are at it, have them cleaned as well.
• Never use gas stoves and oven to heat your home
• Never idle a vehicle in the garage, even with the door open. It is too easy to have something distract you and someone upstairs hurt, while you deal with the other emergency.
• And finally, one of most important, HAVE FUEL BURNING APPLIANCES INSPECTED YEARLY!

Give us a call , if you need the name of a reliable furnace company. We recommend that you set up a service contract that provides for twice yearly inspections. This makes sure that the job will always be done. The Cincinnati Team maintains a list of contractors that our customers have found satisfactory. We're happy to pass those names along to you.

Have a safe Fall (I mean Winter!)