london ohio? (Columbus, Dayton, Springfield: for sale, apartment, houses)

[smakgee]

my husband is being transfered from toledo to dayton. we would much prefer to live in columbus. we are trying to find somthing in between (closer to cbus). does anyone know anything about london. or would it just be in our best intrest to pick a suburb like hilliard?

[cmac57]

We moved to Choctaw Lake from Columbus two years ago and have never regretted it. Lot's of folks here commute to Dayton every day.

Check us out !

[SnowCrash7]

Hilliard is a nice place with great schools. I actually live in Hilliard even though I have a Dublin mailing address. However the property taxes are outrageous and it is getting extremely crowded...more so every day.

If you don't mind a more rural setting I'd suggest london or something between London and Columbus like the West Jefferson area. Quieter, lower property taxes....by about a third..

[Gee]

Originally Posted by smakgee

my husband is being transfered from toledo to dayton. we would much prefer to live in columbus. we are trying to find somthing in between (closer to cbus). does anyone know anything about london. or would it just be in our best intrest to pick a suburb like hilliard?

London would be a do-able commute for most folks. It is a nice rural community and the county seat for Madison county. Madison county is the next county over from Franklin/Columbus and consists mostly of farmland. It sometimes seems to be in a bit of a time warp. I know of one of the high schools where the kids do not use locks on their lockers and if you stop and ask for directions it might sound like this "Go down this road til you come to the Miller farm take a right and then at the big oak tree with the broken limb turn left go on a piece over the creek and up the hill and there you are". Some elections take place in old one room school houses. Very Cool. But it takes about 100 years to be considered a local. The farmers as of yet are not inclined to sell off much land for housing developments but that will most likely change soon. Because it is not too far from I-70 and almost exactly half way between Columbus and Springfield I predict that it will be the next big boom town. Don't limit yourself to the larger small towns because there are many smaller villages between Columbus and Dayton too.

[Gee]

I might also add that land and taxes are much cheaper there than in Franklin county

[OddTodd]

Hello!

I grew up in London and most of my family still live there. It is a very nice place to raise your kids. The schools are goods... beware that they just went on a building spree and taxes are a bit high though... The library is great and the homes are full of charactor if you stay out of the subdivisions that are popping up... Also stay away from Lake Choctaw. They are having a major problem with the sewer system there and they are fighting to make the residents pay...

Good luck and hope you pick London!!!

[angelbntk]

We moved to Ohio about 3yrs ago from the Wisc/IL area.

We started out in Blacklick, then went to Reynoldsburgs, and FINALLY!!!!!. LONDON.

We searched alot of areas, including Marysville, but we fell in love with London. We have lived in the area for a yr+, and I just can't say enough about it.

I've even been trying to get some friends & family from back-home to come out here & check it out.

And sorry OddTodd, I live in one of the "pop-up" neighborhoods. We love the charm of the older homes, but unfortunitly, none of them fit our needs or budget. BUT I will say this.....if you do go for a newer home.....pick WISELY. I found out this summer that some of the newer homes are not worth what was paid for them. In fact, there are MULTIPUL vacant homes in my subdivision. Also, some builders are haveing a problem with basement walls being wet.

As for the taxes, they are M U C H cheaper here than some of the surrounding areas.

[bgfalcons86]

smakgee,
The schools in Hilliard are very good and we like the community a LOT. It is not an inexpensive place to live, between the taxes and housing prices. Brown Township (still semi-rural) is in Hilliard CSD, but it is on the expensive side. If you're looking for something smaller and more semi-rural, you might consider Plain City (Jonathan Alder Local). It lies west of Dublin & Hilliard in Madison County.

[OhioNerd]

The Westbound AM commut is scary. The Eastbound AM commute is much better, although it tends to jam up around the 70/270 interchange because the folks around here are such lousy drivers. (LOL, that's two threads in two minutes where I said that.)

London can be a bit far for a commute. Or not. It depends on what you prefer and are used to. Choctaw Lake is definitely pretty nice and I saw some really nice homes right around 240K when I was looking last month. Land can be very cheap. I lost out on a property right near Choktaw that has 8 acres with two and a half across a road, and very nice rance and a HUGE polebarn with 200amp electric and water. The offer that got it was 205k with no concessions, so there you go.

Hilliard/Galloway can be a good choice. There are a LOT of Dominion Homes around here for sale or forclosed on and you can get a great buy. Basically, Dominion builds a really good product but was doing things with it's lending branch that let a lot of people get into houses they couldn't afford. I'm moving out of an apartment in Galloway (Near Krogers on West Broad), and there is a nice sized Dominion development where very nice homes are going for less than $150k.

Basically, the city is surrounded by a beltway called 270. Is shaped like a lopsided rectangle. Talking about OUTSIDE the beltway, these are your basic options:

North: Polaris area... Expensive. Nice, but Expensive That goes for NW and NE as well. Lot of professional types.
East: Reynoldsburg area... Upper end working class.
South: Kind of the poor area. Southwest has Grove City, which has a lot of nice parts, but also some not so nice ones. On the whole it's probably a good location.
West: Probably the best potential for both value and growth. It's not overbuilt or overrun.

Best kept secret? West Jefferson. Pretty close to the city with a lot of good values in homes.


Inside the beltway, north is probably better than south. That's very generalized, but it's basically true.

If you are looking at a particular area and you want to know about the schools, find out the names of the schools and ask me. I'll tell you which ones are good and which ones to avoid.

[HuberHeights]

You would be better to pick a suburb of Dayton the commute would be long HuberHeights is a nice city also Kettering,Centerville