Is this map of Columbus neighborhoods accurate?

Question

https://www.niche.com/places-to-live/columbus-franklin-oh/ shows a map of the areas in Columbus. To what extent is this map accurate? Are certain C class areas in fact class D/F areas that you would never recommend investors to buy & hold in? I'm a buy & hold investor living in SF Bay Area and I invest in OH. I use realtor.com's crime map to identify the good vs. crime-ridden areas, too. cc @Remington Lyman @Robert Ellis

Mikael Winkler · Answer

@Susan Tan that's actually a great resource! I would agree with @Zeke Liston regarding Hilltop. C+ might be a bit high. And Franklinton may not be a B the further west you go. But, those sorts of things are really splitting hairs. As a quick reference, it seems pretty reliable. A pretty handy site I also use occasionally is https://communitycrimemap.com/. It breaks crime down by type, date, etc.

Regarding Columbus as a whole, though, all of these areas, especially within reasonable distance to Downtown, will continue to rise. Investment is happening at such a rapid pace.

Remington Lyman · Answer

I would consider the area right next to The Ohio State University an A location. That is a good start but if you asked 10 different investors in Columbus, Ohio what their opinions are of the neighborhood grades you would have 10 different maps

Zeke Liston · Answer

I would not consider any of Columbus's metro neighborhoods to be D or F classed @Susan Tan. I would say the map is pretty accurate for the most part. Hilltop I would consider being more in the C range then C+ but other than that I would agree with the majority of the ratings.

Ryan Mainwaring · Answer

@Susan Tan Thank you for sharing that map and agree with most of it.

Robert Ellis · Answer

Fairly accurate minus a couple of pocket but I'm sure with the data they use to make this map that picking apart smaller pockets would be hard to do.

Greg Scott · Answer

There are many different definitions out there that people use to categorize areas A, B, C, D (note: no F).  Some people like a qualitative approach describing age, income levels, etc.  The hard part with the qualitative approach is two different people might give different grades to the same property.

I prefer a quantitative approach.   Just take the rent per square foot for all rent properties in the MSA and divide it into quartiles.  The highest quartile are A properties and the lowest are D.

Now, in reality nobody goes to the trouble to do all that math, but it is pretty easy to eyeball it if you are go to any of the web sites that help potential renters find a place to live and do a search on the rents.  Hint: Narrow to properties of similar size, such as all 2BR apartments. Don't mix studios w/ 5BR houses

Is this map of Columbus neighborhoods accurate?

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