Moving to Ohio and considering Dayton (Columbus, Cleveland: for sale, insurance, mortgage)

[Natural510]

Originally Posted by Michaelnel4449

My wife and I retired and left Dayton after 30+ years. We watched how the corporate billionaires destroyed thousands of good paying union jobs. Dayton had at least 3 good size GM plants, 2 Chrysler plants, NCR and Frigidaire plants that were either shut down or moved out of the country to Mexico, China and Canada.
The only thing left standing now is Wright Patterson AFB which amazes me to this day. Thousands have fled Dayton and Ohio to find work and escape the high taxes. We finally sold our 150,000 home built in 2008 and was lucky to do so. This home was on a 1/2 acre lot and property taxes were over 5,000 per year. The home values in Dayton are in the tank and the people who still live there are trapped paying these high taxes because they cannot sell their homes even at the incredible low values. Few buyers want to pay tax rates 4 times higher than other cities around the nation. The weather is terrible for 9 mos out of the year, winters are cloudy, miserable, rainy and humid with some snow that never seems to melt. Winter goes right into summer about April with incredible humidity and heat until about Sept. Then Sept, Oct and November are usually nice and in Dec it turns to crap again. Dayton has a huge drug problem, you name it, they have it there. Dayton is right at the nation's drug corridor with interstate 70/75 crossing just a few miles up the highway. A lot of poverty and low paying jobs if you like that sort of thing.
We moved to Grand Junction Co and never looked back. So come over to Dayton, the waters fine....

If you haven't lived here in decades, you're really not qualified to speak on the city other than to hear yourself talk.

[midwest1]

Ditto to the above. In fact in just the last five years the trajectory of Dayton has changed greatly for the better.

Folks like the poster above obviously need to convince themselves they made the "right move". The housing market in Dayton is very strong. Homes cant be built fast enough and I truly believe Dayton is beginning to be viewed as part of a larger emerging metro which I am calling CBD (Cincy Butler Dayton). Butler and Warren counties have exploded with growth in the last 20 years which has more or less connected to the Dayton area.

[chairmanoftheboard]

Few people know Dayton was an early high-tech center during WW2. Interesting history with NCR (National Cash Register) and the army of (mostly) women the Govt had working on code breaking. OP is looking to rent, which is probably a good idea considering the very high property tax rates in Ohio. Of course that will also be reflected in rental prices, but maybe not a big factor. I have been to several of these rust belt towns that have been hard hit. Youngstown, Dayton and Detroit to name a few. These places have an interesting feel to them, if you start talking to locals that have a lot of optimism. It is contagious. Sort of like a re-birth. Just beginning. While crime and drugs are quite a problem in certain parts of these towns, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out the places to avoid, and when. Lots of perfectly normal people all around if you look. Good luck!

[WRnative]

Originally Posted by chairmanoftheboard

Few people know Dayton was an early high-tech center during WW2. Interesting history with NCR (National Cash Register) and the army of (mostly) women the Govt had working on code breaking.

Dayton was one of the world's great tech centers during the entire first half of the 20th century and beyond.

Some time when you're in Dayton, visit Carillon Historical Park, one of the best local history museums that I've seen in the U.S. Just Wright Hall alone should make it a destination for anyone interested in America's industrial and scientific history. Wright Hall is part of the Dayton Aviation History National Historical Park.

There was a time when the U.S. government didn't farm out much of military research to the military industrial complex. In aviation, much of its research was conducted at Wright Patterson.

DELCO Labs, the electronics engineering arm of GM, was founded in Dayton. Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds were prominent industrial engineering icons not just in southwest Ohio, but nationally. The Wright brothers and Charles Kettering are great heroes of mine, and IMO Dayton, and Ohio, does too little to celebrate their lives and to put them on a pedestal as models for the youth of our nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delco_Electronics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Kettering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Andrew_Deeds

Deeds founded Carillon Historical Park and was responsible for the reassembling of the Wright Flyer III, in actuality the world's first airplane, now housed in Wright Hall at the park.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g...The.World.html

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Michaelnel4449

...Thousands have fled Dayton and Ohio to find work and escape the high taxes. We finally sold our 150,000 home built in 2008 and was lucky to do so. ...

The above-quoted post is a bit harsh, but not strictly speaking wrong. Dayton's economy is not robust. Yes, there is smattering of recovery, but the first 15 years of the 21st century were so abhorrently awful, that even a good recovery is of mediocre credit.

That said, Dayton is not atypical in its present condition, and doesn't deserve any particular scorn. It is typical of the entire Midwest, except for the 3-4 very largest cities and the college-towns.

Originally Posted by chairmanoftheboard

Few people know Dayton was an early high-tech center during WW2. ...

Originally Posted by WRnative

Dayton was one of the world's great tech centers during the entire first half of the 20th century and beyond. ...

And that's precisely the tragedy! 100 years ago, Dayton was not only thriving, but it was the "Silicon Valley" of its day. After the war, it declined.

Some places never prospered. Their present struggles are simply a continuation of the past. Dayton was formerly prosperous, successful, intellectually and culturally thriving. Its decline is all the more tragic, given the heights from which it fell.

[indy_317]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

The above-quoted post is a bit harsh, but not strictly speaking wrong. Dayton's economy is not robust. Yes, there is smattering of recovery, but the first 15 years of the 21st century were so abhorrently awful, that even a good recovery is of mediocre credit.

That said, Dayton is not atypical in its present condition, and doesn't deserve any particular scorn. It is typical of the entire Midwest, except for the 3-4 very largest cities and the college-towns.

I'm in the Indy area, have been my whole life. A lot of smaller lower Midwestern cities and towns like Dayton did have the same fate. I talk to college students from time to time and many from such cities and towns say that they will likely end up in a major metro area for their career. Just not much going on in some of these areas, and the good jobs that are available are limited. For those who want to stay in the Midwest, but don't want a Chicago sized metro and don't want the winter of a Wisconsin or Minnesota, they mostly are looking at Indy, Louisville, and Cincinnati as places to go and work after college. I think for some, Columbus or St. Louis might be an option, depending on what part of the state they grew up in.

I've only driven thru Dayton in my adult life. Had an in-law that lived there for few years, but they moved on. Never really had anything bad to say about Dayton.

[Michaelnel4449]

Originally Posted by Natural510

If you haven't lived here in decades, you're really not qualified to speak on the city other than to hear yourself talk.

Read it again, we lived in Dayton for over 30 years and left in 2019 to move west.

[Michaelnel4449]

Originally Posted by Michaelnel4449

My wife and I retired and left Dayton after 30+ years. We watched how the corporate billionaires destroyed thousands of good paying union jobs. Dayton had at least 3 good size GM plants, 2 Chrysler plants, NCR and Frigidaire plants that were either shut down or moved out of the country to Mexico, China and Canada.
The only thing left standing now is Wright Patterson AFB which amazes me to this day. Thousands have fled Dayton and Ohio to find work and escape the high taxes. We finally sold our 150,000 home built in 2008 and was lucky to do so. This home was on a 1/2 acre lot and property taxes were over 5,000 per year. The home values in Dayton are in the tank and the people who still live there are trapped paying these high taxes because they cannot sell their homes even at the incredible low values. Few buyers want to pay tax rates 4 times higher than other cities around the nation. The weather is terrible for 9 mos out of the year, winters are cloudy, miserable, rainy and humid with some snow that never seems to melt. Winter goes right into summer about April with incredible humidity and heat until about Sept. Then Sept, Oct and November are usually nice and in Dec it turns to crap again. Dayton has a huge drug problem, you name it, they have it there. Dayton is right at the nation's drug corridor with interstate 70/75 crossing just a few miles up the highway. A lot of poverty and low paying jobs if you like that sort of thing.
We moved to Grand Junction Co and never looked back. So come over to Dayton, the waters fine....

Originally Posted by joe from dayton

Your statement about Dayton real estate being in the tank is simply wrong. I know people buying and selling homes, and I know real estate agents. You are wrong. Period.

https://learn.roofstock.com/blog/day...-estate-market

https://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/n...market-is.html

Just take a drive around the city of Dayton Oh and look at all the abandoned and run down homes, the roads are falling apart and the county of Montgomery still has some of the highest property taxes in America. When I speak of Dayton, I don't mean Centerville, Bellbrook, Vandalia, Beavercreek, etc, those are surrounding areas, I mean inside the city limits.

[Srszee]

I grew up in Dayton (Kettering) and manage to get back about every 5-6 years for a visit as I still have friends there. I miss it terribly and would move back in a heartbeat, but I don't want to leave my 3-yo granddaughter. I'm stuck in Amarillo, Texas. I also lived in Columbus and loved that, too, but it is more expensive to live there.

[Rick Lantz]

Originally Posted by Michaelnel4449

Just take a drive around the city of Dayton Oh and look at all the abandoned and run down homes, the roads are falling apart and the county of Montgomery still has some of the highest property taxes in America. When I speak of Dayton, I don't mean Centerville, Bellbrook, Vandalia, Beavercreek, etc, those are surrounding areas, I mean inside the city limits.

All of the suburbs you mentioned have very high property tax rates, its not just Dayton proper. I have noticed Warren County has significantly lower rates and I cannot figure out why, unless they have less to fund.