Worthington one of nation's hottest housing markets

Jim Weiker, The Columbus Dispatch
·2 min read

The Columbus suburb of Worthington is the third-hottest housing market in the nation, according to an annual ranking published Tuesday by Realtor.com.

The listing service based the rankings on the number of online home searches and the pace of home sales. In Worthington's 43085 Zip code, homes are listed an average of seven days before going into contract, and receive 3.9 times the number of views than typical U.S. listings.

Realtor.com cited three reasons for Worthington's appeal to home-buyers:

  • Bang for the buck: Worthington homes cost $213 a square foot, below the national median of $228.

  • Popularity among people relocating: 67.7% of those looking at homes in Worthington lived outside the Zip code.

  • Popularity among younger buyers: Millennials (now aged 25 to 44) make up 66.4% of Worthington homeowners, well above the national rate of 51.3%.

This isn't the first time Worthington has appeared in the Top 10 on Realtor.com's list, which it has published for eight years. In 2015, Worthington was named the second-hottest market in the country, and in 2018, it was named the seventh-hottest market.

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Last year, the Far West Side neighborhood of Lincoln Village was named the sixth-hottest market on the Realtor.com list.

This year, Worthington is the only Ohio community among the Top 10 hottest cities, which is dominated by smaller Northeastern cities. The Rochester, New York, suburb of Brighton, topped the list, followed by Nashua, New Hampshire.

"With rising inflation and mortgage rates squeezing monthly housing budgets, this year’s determined buyers are breathing new life into competition for homes in historic areas like New England," Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said in a news release.

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"Our 2022 Hottest ZIPs ranking illustrates how many Americans are redefining their priorities to achieve homeownership while building their careers, by trading downtown life for relatively affordable areas with reasonable part-time commutes to big cities.”

Hale noted that all communities in the Top 10 are less expensive, on a square-foot basis, than the national average.

While Worthington is the only Ohio city in the Top 10, four other Ohio communities landed in the Top 50: Dayton, at #23; Waynesville, #25; Wadsworth, at #36; and Mount Vernon, #37.

jweiker@dispatch.com

@JimWeiker

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus suburb Worthington among hottest housing markets in US