Anderson2020 // Anderson Township

For weeks and weeks, I was posting and posting all kinds of good stuff on this site, and then BAM —- nothing for months.

So what happened? Lotsa stuff.

• I took up running, and I’ve lost almost 20 pounds since January.  I’m now running with the Echo Running Club.
• We bought a house in the Markley Farm neighborhood.
• We officially joined Anderson Hills United Methodist Church.
• We’re now permanent residents/home owners of Anderson Township – hooray!Now when will we resume this discussion? Soon, I hope.

We had the most interesting day of touring 3 open houses and 1 open lot.   Each property we saw gave us opportunities for us to think, “Is this the one?”  For those of you who are new here, you can track our home-finding journey starting with this post and continuing by clicking any tag on this blog labeled “open house”.

Have you ever watched House Hunters on HGTV?  A 30-minute episode features a home buyer (or a couple) touring three houses and then choosing one to buy at the end.   Pretty simple concept.

At the end of our House Hunters journey, we’d love you to help us answer the question “Which property looks like the best deal for us?”  Any other advice (buying resale vs building vs remodeling) would be most appreciated.  I’d prefer if you’d post a comment below, but e-mail is OK too.

Here are the basic guidelines we’re working with:  

** $350,000 rough maximum price
** A house we’ll want to live in for the next 10 years
** A house with something unique about it (no cookie cutter)

So here we go!

House #1 -7716 Coldbrook Lane (map) (Coldwell Banker listing)

“Move-in ready!”

7716 Coldbrook Lane

This Colonial is on a street with a bunch of pretty houses, many of which are also Colonials of fairly-recent vintage.   Coldbrook is a nice street off Asbury, just south of Beechmont — very convenient, but you don’t feel like you’re dealing with all the Beechmont business when you’re home.

This home has 5 bedrooms upstairs (one has been converted into a reading room off the master).  There’s technically a 6th-bedroom that takes part of the basement space.  The kitchen is updated with granite.  There are hardwoods throughout the first floor.  It’s really decked out and in very nice condition. 

The backyard isn’t huge, but it’s landscaped nicely.  There’s plenty of room for family activities.

Behind this home is a new subdivision of homes (more…)

Check out today’s Community Press article regarding the $8,500 spent by our Township trustees to send out a snail mail letter to some 21,500 residents, asking them to put pressure on Hamilton County commissioners to restore cuts made to the sheriff’s budget. 

First things first:

1. It’s great to see reporter Lisa Wakeland dig into public records to tell important stories.  This is community journalism at its most important.  Keep at it, Lisa.
2. I was accurately quoted in the article.  Thanks for getting that right, Lisa.

Here’s the backstory: (more…)

Temps in the 40s gave my daughter, son and wife a reason to get out and enjoy our first visit to Five Mile Trail.  My wife now says we MUST buy a home that backs up to the trail.  Noted.

We’ve visited many more open houses in the past 3 weeks, but we’ve not had the time to write reviews.  Rather than wait longer to write more, let me post some mini-reviews of what we’ve seen recently.

7366 Riverby Road – Anytime you get the chance to visit a home on Riverby, you know you’re in for some big views.  This house, listed by Key Realty Group for $376,000, is no exception.  Three levels, each with a great view of a magnificent turn in the Ohio River.   The top level is all about the master suite.  The middle level is living space — a large family room, kitchen, dining, large patios.  The lower level has three bedrooms, a bathroom, and the three-car garage.   There’s an acre of land, but not much yard.  It’s heavily treed, with some slope.   The house appears to be in good shape, but there’s an odd mix of natural wood (lots of it in trim), and gray/yellow tile. 

841 Indian Trace Ct – This Huff listing shows off a $259,000-priced, 21-year-old home in a neighborhood near Asbury Rd. and Forest Rd.  The lot is on a cul-de-sac, which means a limited front yard, but an expansive back yard.  The back yard is gorgeous, but slopes down to the creek (Five Mile Creek?) that parallels that part of Forest.  The home has a beautiful deck – 3 of them actually – and several upgrade.  One of the downers is the 2nd, 3rd and 4th bedrooms are very small.  Great neighborhood, nice drive-up though.

1126 Hawkstone Dr – Another home in a good neighborhood – this one is just off Salem Rd, just west of Sutton Rd.  Listed by Sibcy Cline at $237,000, this home goes back 38 years.  In contrast to the home on Indian Trace, this home has much bigger bedrooms.   The home needs some updating.  The basement is usable but unfinished.  There’s ample room on all three levels.  Since this is a corner lot, most of the yard is in the front and on the side, with less space in back.  This would be a nice house to refurb, but the risk is in resale.  A quick search of Zillow shows this home is at or near the top in price in its immediate vicinity, so putting too much into to home (assuming you paid the asking price) might not get you much in return for your extra investment.  (In contrast, with the Indian Trace Ct and Riverby homes, you’d be making improvements in a home where other homes are more expensive -a much better investment).

In the end, it was a simple decision. We are locked and loaded and very happy at the Beechmont Racquet & Fitness Club.  It’s less than 1 mile from our house.  I can resurrect my tennis career – I played a bit of competitive tennis when I was a teenager, but haven’t played much since. 

The facilities at Beechmont are very nice, and they’ve got everything I need to get a good workout.  I also love the fact that (more…)

Good news!  We joined a health club, and I’ll mention more in the next post.  But for now, let me tell you about the fun you’re in store for when you inquire about a membership at another one of Anderson Township’s health clubs. 

It was an ordinary Wednesday night.  My daughter and wife were at church.  My son and I had just finished dinner at LaRosa’s.  On the way back home, I asked Andrew if he’d indulge me for a few moments while I checked out the FitWorks gym on Beechmont Ave, just west of Nagel.  He was kind enough to say “yes”, so we dropped in.

This particular location sits back off Beechmont just a bit.  It’s got a flashy silver marquee that sets it apart from other stores in an otherwise nondescript strip mall.   Thankfully, the inside of the club is much (more…)

We’re checking out local gyms for our family to join.  In Texas we were members of a Lifetime Fitness outlet, which is a family-oriented gym/lifestyle center/hair salon/healthy deli with indoor and outdoor lap and splash pools with waterslides.   In Virginia, we at first joined the local YMCA branch, but the hours weren’t very convenient, so we joined a brand-new spacious and fancy American Family Fitness.  We like new, we like big, and if it’s fancy too, so much the better. 

We’ve never spent more than (more…)

They had me at “Gravy”.  A new restaurant in Goshen Township, simply named “Gravy”, was reviewed in the Enquirer this weekend.   Can we get one here?  I’ll trade a couple of our chain restaurants for one “Gravy”.

 Once every few Open Houses, you get one that makes you want to say “Ugh!”.   Such was the case for my visit to 6148 Watchview Ct, which is off Four Mile Rd. 

6148 Watchview Ct

There’s probably nothing wrong with this house.  The Comey listing lays out its many features.  It’s not as big nor nearly as fancy as the home on Bruns Ln, but I can’t say there’s $90,000 of difference between the two.   There’s new flooring and carpet and new granite countertops.  The house has good space in its traditional colonial floor-plan.   The basement has a lot of space, though none of the individual rooms is very big.  The backyard features two levels of decks.  The rest of the yard is pretty and wooded, but less useful, with a steep slope.

What was striking during my visit (more…)