Rentals on rise in central Ohio neighborhoods
Jim Weiker, The Columbus Dispatch
About 35,000 central Ohio homes that a decade ago were occupied by owners are now rental properties, changing — perhaps forever — the character of some neighborhoods.
According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, more than 81,000 single-family homes are rented in central Ohio, up from about 46,000 in 2005.
The figure does not include 21,000 town homes, duplexes and attached patio homes that are rented. Nor does it include the growing number of vacation-rental homes, which in many cases have become full-time rental properties.
The growth in rental homes began while the housing market was still healthy, but it accelerated dramatically with the crash of 2008. The crash pushed tens of thousands of central Ohioans from their homes, which investors gobbled up to cater to an increase in renters. In the past four years, more than 20,000 central Ohio homes have been turned into rentals, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
Rental homes can be found in every central Ohio community — from Upper Arlington to New Albany, Westerville to Grove City.
Most of the new rental homes, though, are found in subdivisions built in the 1990s through the mid-2000s featuring smaller homes designed for first-time homebuyers. Many of the subdivisions are on the edge of Columbus or in neighboring suburbs.
"For years after the crash hit, we got hired every single day by people who were transferred and owed more than their home was worth," said Jack DeBaar, owner of Beacon Property Management, which oversees more than 1,000 area rentals. "It was just amazing. They just couldn't sell it."
DeBaar said most of the calls came from within new subdivisions built near I-270 in Columbus and in Galloway, Grove City, Canal Winchester, Blacklick and Reynoldsburg.
Investors were drawn to such neighborhoods because houses there were relatively new, requiring little repair; neighborhoods were attractive, with low crime rates; schools were often better than they were in the central city; and prices had plummeted from housing-boom highs.
In Lehman Estates in Canal Winchester, for example, the investment company American Homes 4 Rent bought 22 houses in the past three years, most of them built between 2003 and 2005 by Maronda Homes.
North of there in the Hummell Grove Meadows neighborhood, developed throughout the 1990s, at least two dozen homes have moved from owner- to renter-occupied after being bought by investors, including American Homes 4 Rent and Silver Bay.
In the Galloway Ridge community on the Far West Side, developed in the early 2000s by Dominion Homes, more than 50 homes have been bought by investors for rentals during the past few years.
Although some condominium and homeowner associations restrict rentals, central Ohio municipalities don't prohibit the rental of a single-family home.
"There's nothing that says you can't make your house a rental property," said Dana Rose, the code-enforcement administrator for Columbus.
Dianne Harper has watched a string of homes in her Williams Creek neighborhood, northeast of Obetz, switch to rental after the homes were lost by homeowners who bought them new in the mid-2000s. On her street, at least four homes are now rented.
Harper, who has lived in the neighborhood since 2008, said neighbors repeatedly have called police on some of the homes because of noise, drugs and loitering, including one property "where the kids stand out in the street and smoke dope."
In other cases, she said, trash and neglect mark the homes.
Harper knows that many renters take good care of their homes; she rented for a year in Williams Creek before buying. But she thinks indifferent landlords and some bad tenants have seriously damaged her neighborhood.
"It went from a very clean neighborhood to a very trashy neighborhood," she said. "They don't care to cut grass or rake leaves. The street is the trash can."
When Allison Goodwin bought her home in 2003 in Parkridge Village, near Minerva Park, she knew of no rental homes in the neighborhood. In recent years, at least four homes on her street have become rentals.
"It's probably been the worst in the last two years," she said.
One rental home in particular — which has drawn police — has been a source of frustration for the neighbors.
"That rental right now is the bane of my existence," Goodwin said. "It is bad. It makes me nervous to drive by that house."
Goodwin, who has a background in property management, knows that many tenants keep their homes as tidy as owners do.
"The unfortunate thing is with rentals, you have a roll of the dice for a year," she said.
Renters resent the stereotypes and say that many homeowners are poor stewards of their properties.
"I love how renters are lumped together — as riffraff, trailer trash and the like," said Jennifer Blythe, who rents a home in Columbus.
"Many like us rent by choice. We have owned and don't care for the financial demand of worrying about AC units, roofs and fallen trees. But we are still law-abiding citizens who mow the grass, plant flowers and contribute to our community."
Christine Smith is disappointed to see so many homes in her Reynoldsburg neighborhood turn to rentals, but she prefers that to what happened to the neighborhood during the housing crash.
"Not too long after I moved in, the houses were vacated," she said. "At one point, houses all around me were empty and for sale."
Now those homes are rented.
"I would rather see rentals than empty homes," she said.
Her husband, Jim, goes a step further. He believes the homes are actually better maintained as rentals than they were when owner-occupied.
"My observation is that it has not had an adverse effect on our neighborhood," he said.
Still, most homeowners in neighborhoods with rental homes worry about crime, upkeep and, ultimately, property values.
But the relationship between rentals and property values isn't straightforward. Some of the highest property values in central Ohio are found in areas full of rentals, including Grandview Heights and Victorian Village.
"I don't think rentals hurt a neighborhood," Beacon Management's DeBaar said.
"Everyone likes to think so, but I'd rather have a tenant living next to me than an empty house, which was the way a lot of those neighborhoods were. There's a lot of good tenants out there."
Some experts also wonder whether landlords might start selling properties to take advantage of rising values.
Although hundreds of central Ohio homes were purchased by large investors such as American Homes 4 Rent and Silver Bay, far more are owned by small landlords or individuals who kept the homes to rent because they couldn't sell them during the recession.
Some of those landlords have been tempted to sell, now that prices are up.
Nathan Filia, owner of Golden Gate Real Estate, a Lewis Center brokerage that also manages homes for landlords, believes the pendulum is swinging back.
"I do see them (rental homes) switching back," he said. "I just had someone in my office who wants to buy the home she is renting."
jweiker@dispatch.com
@JimWeiker