Question about the Grafton Hill neighborhood of Dayton (Mason, Salem: real estate, crime)

[SWOH]

Wow. lots of great info from posters here! To all of you newcomers, please do not be strangers, a lot of relocation and community discussion happens here and you input would be highly valued.

To the OP, you're not going to get a much better response than this, so I hope you are following through with getting in contact with the posters here.

[Chris_in_Dayton_OH]

Except for a brief 2 year stint in Cincinnati, my husband and I have called Grafton Hill our home for over 35 years. We have owned, lived in and restored our third house in the neighborhood and raised a son here because the world is a diverse place and we could not see raising a child in a white-flight suburb. Grafton Hill is a unique neighborhood that celebrates the diversity of our residents. Our homes are very unique – no cookie cutter housing developments here. And if you embark on a repair project, there is a host of knowledge in the neighborhood willing to provide advice and even lend a hand.
We have worked very hard to eliminate the issues in the neighborhood and take control of properties and situations that were once problematic. It is a very densely populated neighborhood due to all of the apartments that are in the area. Some are better than others, and the “others” are the ones where incidents are prone to happen. And our strong neighborhood tolerates very little and diligently reports any issues that we see. The world is a changed place. No matter where you are, you should be aware and practice common sense. Do I feel safe and comfortable here? Absolutely.
There is an active neighborhood association and a strong group of advocates for historic preservation that live here. We have a community garden that we rented a plot in, a gardening group that maintains public spaces, monthly carry in dinners at different homes in the neighborhood, and a team is currently planning a Holiday Home Tour in December 2016.
But hey, it is pretty obvious that I love this place and especially the great group of neighbors who live here. If you want to meet and talk to some neighbors just email [email]GraftonHill@Outlook.com[/email] and I am sure we can get you in touch. Even better, come to our next carry in or attend a neighborhood association meeting. We publicize those to our email list so you can request to get on the list. I am glad you asked about our community and hope we get a chance to meet you and give you the insiders view.

[DrDaveF]

Hi there... We've been living in Grafton Hill for about 8 years now, and have twins that are 7. Dayton Public Schools has a newly-built Montessori school about a mile from here, and it's about as good of an elementary school as you could hope for... and it's free for city residents.

When the weather is nice, we take the kids for walks or bike rides around the neighborhood pretty regularly. There are a lot of things you can get to within easy biking distance, including the Riverscape Metro Park. Plus, we have some pretty awesome houses over here.

If you're worried about crime, this is a heavily populated area but we do a pretty good job of looking out for one another here. I've lived in various city and rural settings around the US, and I don't feel any less safe here. It's good to teach your kids to be alert, but that's pretty much true anywhere these days.

[Natural510]

Interesting...I'm guessing you guys were redirected here from elsewhere?

[SWOH]

^I think you're right. It looks like somebody in the community saw the post and asked the community to post comments. Considering the fact that Grafton Hill, especially residential Grafton Hill, is not a big place, the turnout here is quite impressive. We may well have someone from 5% of all households in the community with a post here! (I think there's about ~100 houses there at most, and I'd be willing to bet every previous poster owns a house and does not rent in Grafton Hill).

[Dracolique]

Hi everyone!

Sorry I haven't responded to this thread since I originally created it. My wife and I have been searching all over for a home, and I've been asking questions here and there when an area strikes my fancy. Somehow I forgot about this thread all together until today when I got an email reminder that there had been some responses to it.

However, I see now that forgetting about this thread was a big mistake! Now I come here to find two pages of EXCELLENT info on the neighborhood.

Unfortunately at this point Grafton Hill is very likely not going to happen for us; we've recently signed a contract and put a very substantial down payment on what we think could be an excellent home for our family, but if anything goes wrong with that deal or if we ever find ourselves looking for residential property in Ohio again you can be very sure we'll take a much closer look at the Grafton Hill area.

Either way, in my opinion this thread is an excellent resource for potential home purchasers considering your neighborhood. I couldn't find a lot of info about it when I was searching before which was why I made the thread to begin with. I have a feeling many people see those Trulia (and other) crime maps and simply write it off as a viable option. If this thread is seen by people in the future, I'm sure they'll be very happy to hear about your community involvement, the feeling of security and the close knit sense of homeowner responsibility in Grafton Hill. Thank you all so much for contributing!

If anyone's interested, here's the house we ended up purchasing (sorry for the portrait view and the jumping around... the original video was taken by the previous owner and I did what I could to make it cohesive, but it is what it is):



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPJ_XSA81MU

[SWOH]

Thank you for the feedback! And congrats on the new house, is it in Dayton?

[Dracolique]

No, it's not even in Ohio... it's in the Allegheny mountains of New York State, near the border with Pennsylvania. I told you we were looking all over, lol

We took a really hard look at Dayton, but it was only one of several places we were considering. In the end, I decided to go back to the land of my ancestors; I have a lot of family back east.

[Ed Ferris]

Can anyone tell me why 331 Grafton Ave is on the REAP abandoned properties list? White house with pink trim. It seems the high-rise at Grafton and West Grand is abandoned, so maybe it makes sense that a good-looking house would be, too. Grafton Hill seems a bit more desirable than Old Dayton View for investing in rehab. What often happens here (Indiana, Richmond in particular) is a property owner gets behind on taxes and his property is put in a sale list, but of course he doesn't let it get foreclosed for two or three thousand dollars. If you know the story on 331 Grafton let me know it; I don't want to kick anybody out into the street.

[randomparent]

The high-rise is the Commodore Apartment building, and it was sold last year to a developer, who also bought several other buildings in the area. As I understand, it is about 10% occupied.