Which Columbus Suburbs Give You a Smaller New House Than Resale?

Short answer: seven of them, and which seven matters less than which direction the price goes. Across 2026 Columbus MLS closings, the median new build is smaller than the median resale in Commercial Point (-20%), Galena (-12%), New Albany (-12%), Powell (-10%), Etna (-8%), Ashville (-6%) and Plain City (-1%). In four of those the new build is also cheaper per square foot, which makes it a bargain: buying Galena's median new build at the local resale rate would run $610,704, and it actually closed at $487,900. In two it is more expensive per foot, which is the worst combination on the board. Commercial Point runs $115,038 against you at equal size.

I run this comparison every quarter across all 20,899 Central Ohio closings, and these seven are the ones that break the pattern.

That runs against the standard story. Almost everywhere else in Central Ohio, builders sell noticeably bigger houses than the resale stock. In Hilliard the median new build is 90 percent larger than the median resale. In Bellefontaine it is 63 percent larger, in London 53, in Grove City 50. That size gap is what normally explains a scary-looking sticker premium.

These seven suburbs are where that explanation stops working, and reading them correctly is worth real money.

Where is the new house smaller than the resale?

Suburb	New builds	Resale	New sq ft	Resale sq ft	Size gap	New $/sq ft	Resale $/sq ft	Per-foot gap
Commercial Point	19	27	1,951	2,440	-20%	$212	$172	+24%
Galena	31	75	2,474	2,817	-12%	$217	$247	-12%
New Albany	13	192	2,090	2,368	-12%	$225	$253	-11%
Powell	85	289	2,191	2,443	-10%	$219	$245	-11%
Etna	8	48	1,772	1,934	-8%	$168	$193	-13%
Ashville	10	55	1,771	1,887	-6%	$206	$185	+11%
Plain City	118	105	2,476	2,503	-1%	$224	$227	-1%

Read the count columns first. Powell (85), Plain City (118) and Galena (31) carry enough new-construction volume to stand on their own. Commercial Point (19), New Albany (13), Ashville (10) and Etna (8) are directional and I would not price a house off them.

Why would a builder sell a smaller house here?

Because in these towns the builder is not competing against a starter home. They are competing against somebody's estate.

Powell resale has a median build year of 2001 and a median size of 2,443 square feet. Galena's resale is 2,817 square feet at a median 2005. New Albany's is 2,368 at 2004. That is large, established, well-built stock on real lots, and it already trades at a high number.

A builder cannot buy land in Powell, put up a 3,000 square foot house and land under $245 a foot. So they do the other thing: they build a smaller, efficient, current-code house and price it under the established stock per foot. The buyer trades square footage and a mature lot for new mechanicals, a warranty and a lower per-foot number.

That is a legitimate trade and it is the opposite of the pitch most people expect from new construction.

Where does that actually save you money?

Run each town at equal size. Take the median new build's square footage, price it at the local resale rate, and compare to what new construction actually closed at.

Suburb	Same size at resale rate	Actual new close	Difference
Galena	$610,704	$487,900	$122,804 in your favor
New Albany	$528,134	$479,500	$48,634 in your favor
Powell	$536,181	$489,000	$47,181 in your favor
Etna	$341,565	$297,036	$44,530 in your favor
Plain City	$561,749	$569,450	$7,701 against you
Ashville	$327,923	$371,660	$43,738 against you
Commercial Point	$334,952	$449,990	$115,038 against you

Galena is the widest gap in Central Ohio in the buyer's favor. You are giving up 343 square feet against the median resale and keeping roughly $122,800.

Powell is the one I get asked about most, and it is the most reliable line here at 85 new-construction closings. New construction closed at a median $489,000 against $558,000 for resale. Some of that is size. But per foot, new is $219 against $245, so even after you control for the smaller house, new construction in Powell is the cheaper product. I broke that town down on its own in is new construction worth it in Powell.

And where does it cost you?

Commercial Point is the outlier, and it is the only town on this list where both halves go against the buyer. The median new build is a fifth smaller than the median resale and costs a quarter more per foot. At equal size that is about $115,038 for less house.

Ashville is a milder version of the same shape: 6 percent smaller, 11 percent more per foot, about $43,738 against you at equal size.

Both are thin samples, 19 and 10 closings, so I am describing a pattern rather than settling a price. But the direction is worth knowing before you tour, because in these two towns the usual new-construction argument does not hold up and the resale stock is doing something the builders are not.

What this means if you are relocating here

This is the group I end up walking through it most often, because a relocating buyer is making a size judgment with no local reference point.

If you are moving to Central Ohio from a coastal or higher-cost market, the instinct is to treat new construction as the safe default. You do not know the neighborhoods, you cannot read a 2001 house from a listing photo, and a builder gives you a warranty and a known quantity. That instinct is reasonable and in most of this metro it is also correct.

In these seven suburbs it needs one adjustment. The established stock in Powell, New Albany and Galena is not the tired inventory the word "resale" suggests. It is 2,400 to 2,800 square feet, built in the early 2000s, on lots that a builder cannot replicate at that price today. When somebody relocating tells me they want new construction in Powell, my honest read is that they should look at both, because the resale in that town is a different and often better product than what the word implies.

The reverse holds in Commercial Point. New construction there is the thing that looks like a deal and is not.

What I would do if you are landing here from out of state: pick the town first on commute and school district, then let the data tell you which side of that town to shop. The answer changes suburb to suburb, which is exactly why a metro-wide rule of thumb fails people here.

What should you actually do with this?

If you are looking in Powell, New Albany, Galena or Etna: take new construction seriously, including on price. You are not paying a premium in these towns, you are paying less per foot for a newer house, and the tradeoff is square footage and lot maturity rather than money. Just budget the property tax reset, which in Powell is the largest in the metro at roughly $559 a month once the county reassesses. I covered the mechanics in when do you start paying real property taxes on a new build.

If you are looking in Commercial Point or Ashville: walk the resale inventory before you sign anything at a model. You may find more house for less per foot a mile away.

Everywhere else in Central Ohio: the usual rule applies, and the sticker gap you see is mostly a size gap. I ran the per-foot math across every suburb in what 20,899 Columbus closings actually show.

The thing a table cannot tell you

Median square footage is a blunt instrument. A 2,191 square foot new build in Powell and a 2,443 square foot resale from 2001 are not the same 2,200 to 2,400 square feet. One has current insulation, a furnace that owes you nothing and a warranty. The other has a mature lot, established landscaping and twenty-five years of somebody's decisions, some of which will become yours.

I came up in a family of carpenters and contractors, and the useful question in these towns is never the per-foot number on its own. It is what the specific resale actually needs over the next ten years, priced properly, set against what the specific new build actually includes once the lot premium and the design center are counted.

Send me the new build you are weighing and the resale you are comparing it against, and I'll put them side by side on finished cost per square foot with the builder's current incentives, the reassessed tax figure and a real read on what that older house needs. It takes about a day and it regularly changes which one people choose.

Before you tour a model, read do you need a buyer agent for new construction. The registration rule at the model home is the most expensive fifteen seconds in the whole process.