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A comment on another blog (not my blog) about the Demographia Survey  from Jack:

“New housing in C-bus is affordable, and when affordable, is also bad.

I work for a company that supplies several essentials to finish new houses.

Our company services a wide range of home builders from 150K to 2m+.

New homes and the profits made from them are in the worst shape in over 20 years. Might be good for buyers who have the jack and actually know what kind of houses they are buying, but bad for the builders and the jobs they provide.

The majority of “affordable” homes (and I realize that term means diff things to diff people) are basic expletive built on expletive treeless farmland turned into mudfields with below average services and cookie cutter Dominion/MI/Ryland/Westport/Rockford/Centex/expletive, expletive, expletive. “

I edited Jack’s comment to remove a racial remark. And naughty words… I think it’s an expletive.  His vulgar word could be translated to “refuse; rubbish; junk; litter;” according to Dictionary.com

Did you buy a Dominion, MI, Ryland (no they’ve been gone for years), Rockford or Centex home in Central Ohio in the past 5 to 10 years? Jack thinks you should have been denied that right.You should have had to continue to rent until you were able to buy a home that met with Jack’s discerning taste for quality. Or you should have bought a resale home, no new home for you! And the owner of that treeless farmland should have been restrained from selling that land to builders who would build a home YOU could afford.

Jack must be selling to these builders he’s bad mouthing if he’s selling from 150,00 dollars on up.

MI, Ryland (Do I know Westport?) and Centex sell in lots of markets that are much less affordable than Columbus…

No comments bad mouthing a particular builders will be published…

No comments bad mouthing cornfields will be published… Maybe that’s going too far. No comments saying “cornfields suck.” Unless you can do it with style and flair, no picking on the topography of Central Ohio. We all know cornfields are flat. We all know once the corn is gone cornfields are very, very bare…

There’s a poll about builders in the sidebar. Who is the best lower priced builder in Central Ohio?

Today,  February 17, 2008 is Mingle with our Mutts at the Franklin County Dog Shelter  in Columbus!

“Mingle with our Mutts every first & third Sunday!”  “Noon- 2 pm” according to their website which has photos of dogs who need homes.

The Franklin County dog shelter site  says there are 404 dogs that need you on their website.

Looking at Columbus among cities world wide… Columbus housing is affordable.

It’s a long survey, lots of it is redundant. It is a pdf (I hate pdf’s) but it was worth skimming. Columbus is among the affordable cities based on housing and income… in six western English speaking countries. The 4th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey by Wendell Cox and Hugh Pavlitech. Page 7. Page 27 and Page 34 show how affordable Columbus is. Many Ohio cities are on the list of the most affordable cites, Youngstown is the number two most affordable city in all those countries behind Thunder Bay in Canada. Toledo is on the affordable list, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Akron, Canton and Dayton are there…

I skimmed for something, anything about how and why Columbus is different than some of the other markets on the list of cities with affordable housing. If it’s there I can’t find it. Columbus is not a depressed market. Some of the markets on the affordable list are there because of a depressed economy… rust belt… manufacturing moved south or out of the country.

Not the case in Columbus. Geographically maybe. Economically? No.

Why is Columbus affordable? In part because of urban sprawl… because we can build out into the cornfields and have for years. Low cost land on the fringes is part of what has made Columbus affordable. Land has not been rationed in Central Ohio.

“That’s just not right!”

“Says who?”

It may not be politically correct. It is certainly not “green” to suggest there is anything positive about urban sprawl… and the price of gas is going up….

Thanks to former Ohioan and real estate blogger Jeff Royce in Fairfax VA for the heads up about the survey.

Real Living Loves Zillow….

I think this notice on our intranet is from today, Valentine’s Day. I am pretty good about reading things from Real Living and Real Living HER (the Columbus region) on our internal company website.

“As was previously announced, Real Living has partnered with Zillow.com, which attracts nearly 4 million users per month. And now, Real Living listings are now officially up on Zillow’s site. Check them out today!”

It is not dated… but if it was up yesterday humor me… I want it to have been posted to us on Valentines Day… because I have written about Zillow and Real Living a time or two and I just love the phrase “Loves Z, Loves Z Not…”

Real Living Loves Z.  I mean Zillow.

I think Zillow had a birthday recently… Zillow was born on February 6, 2006? February 7 , 2006? or maybe it was February 8, 2006…? Zillow just had it’s second birthday if I am not mistaken… Happy Belated Birthday Zillow… entering the terrible twos…

All of Real Living’s listing are on Zillow, Trulia, Oodle…

Zillow Zindex for Columbus

Zillow values $8.5 - $9 million home at $1.5 million?

that’s a Central Ohio home too…

Real Living Loves Zillow…

In case you missed it my middle name is Rose (it’s in a meme here recently… seven things about me… )

I am not a big fan of roses from the florist but I enjoyed this Squidoo Lens about what each color of roses represent.

Roses: Color Meanings

I am a big fan of roses on bushes… like at the Whetstone Park of Roses in Clintonville… months away but worthy of putting on your calendar now. Buckeye Chuck promised an early spring so this snow and cold should end soon… The Columbus Rose Festival at the Whetstone Park of Roses. The Columbus Rose Festival is traditionally the first weekend in June… I believe. Something to look forward to.

Happy Valentines Day and best wishes from ColumbusBestBlog.com

May you get roses from your sweetheart if that is your thing…

… or chocolates (if you are not on a diet.)

Or a card, a hug or a kiss. Or hearing “I love you.” Or a sweet smile from a friend or a stranger on the snowy streets of Columbus, this Valentines Day 2008.