Is Dublin or Westerville Ohio More Expensive in 2026? $93,500

Dublin's median resale closed at $529,000 this year. Westerville's closed at $435,500. That is a $93,500 gap, and almost every buyer I talk to reads it as a premium for the same house in a better zip code.

It is not. Most of that spread is the size and age of what sells in each town. Match the houses and the gap collapses.

I run this table for every buyer who puts both towns on a list. Here are the closed numbers. Columbus and Central Ohio MLS, all 2026 closings through September 14, 21,757 of them county-wide. Resale only unless I say otherwise, because new construction skews both towns hard.

Is Dublin or Westerville More Expensive in 2026?

Dublin, yes. By less than the headline says.

2026 resale closings	Dublin	Westerville
Sales	717	942
Median sold price	$529,000	$435,500
Median price per documented sq ft	$240	$228
Median size	2,201 sq ft	1,886 sq ft
Median year built	1997	1993
Median days from list to contract	14	14
Median sold to original list price	100.0%	100.0%

The price gap is 21 percent. The per-foot gap is 5 percent. The difference between those two numbers is 315 square feet of median house.

Both towns sold at 100 percent of original list and went under contract in 14 days. Pace is not a tiebreaker here. Price is.

Do You Get More House for the Money in Westerville?

Pull both towns down to the same band, 1,800 to 2,600 documented square feet, and this is what closed:

1,800 to 2,600 sq ft, resale, 2026	Dublin	Westerville
Sales	222	345
Median sold price	$526,400	$485,000
Median size	2,222 sq ft	2,154 sq ft
Median price per sq ft	$237	$222
Median year built	1996	1994

$41,400 apart. Not $93,500.

Now run it from the budget side. Take every resale that closed between $500,000 and $600,000. Dublin: 88 sales, median 2,402 square feet, median year built 1992. Westerville: 157 sales, median 2,386 square feet, median year built 1997.

Sixteen square feet. At half a million dollars, in this band, the two towns hand you the same house. Westerville's is five years newer and there are nearly twice as many of them.

The old line that Westerville gives you more square footage per dollar does not hold up against 2026 closings. It gives you more houses per dollar, which is a different thing and matters more than people think when you are the one writing offers.

Which Town Has More Homes Above $650,000?

Buyers get this part backwards more than any other. Each town's 2026 resale volume, by price band.

Price band	Dublin	Westerville
Under $300,000	85 (11.9%)	152 (16.1%)
$300,000 to $400,000	135 (18.8%)	233 (24.7%)
$400,000 to $500,000	114 (15.9%)	235 (24.9%)
$500,000 to $650,000	148 (20.6%)	194 (20.6%)
$650,000 to $1,000,000	189 (26.4%)	102 (10.8%)
Above $1,000,000	46 (6.4%)	26 (2.8%)

Above $650,000, Dublin closed 235 resales. Westerville closed 128. If your budget starts with a 7 and you want choice, Dublin has roughly twice the field, and it is not close.

Below $500,000 it reverses. Westerville closed 620 resales under $500,000 against Dublin's 334.

New construction is a separate market in both. Dublin closed 47 new-construction sales at a $719,000 median and 2,756 square feet, sitting 73 days to contract. Westerville closed 31 at $610,000 and 2,194 square feet, gone in 8 days. Thin either way, and the pattern holds that new build trades smaller than resale at the same money in most of these suburbs, which I broke down in new construction versus resale square footage.

Does a Dublin Mailing Address Mean Dublin City Schools?

A Dublin mailing address does not put you in Dublin City Schools. Of 764 Dublin-addressed 2026 closings: 556 in Dublin City Schools, 101 in Columbus City Schools, 91 in Hilliard, 13 in Worthington, 3 in Olentangy. Westerville's 973 closings split into 671 Westerville, 146 Columbus, 49 Olentangy, 39 Big Walnut, 38 Worthington, 30 New Albany Plain.

The market prices those lines. Same mailing city, 2026 resales:

Dublin mailing address	Sales	Median price	Median sq ft	Median $/sq ft
Dublin City Schools	524	$600,000	2,376	$248
Hilliard City Schools	76	$524,500	2,242	$225
Columbus City Schools	101	$350,000	1,584	$219

Westerville mailing address	Sales	Median price	Median sq ft	Median $/sq ft
Westerville City Schools	645	$435,000	1,870	$231
Columbus City Schools	146	$390,000	1,840	$208

Read the per-foot column, not the median. The Dublin district lines sell about 13 percent higher per foot than the Columbus district lines inside the same Dublin mailing address, and about 11 percent higher in Westerville. The rest of those median gaps is house size, not the district line.

Attendance boundaries move. Confirm the assigned district and school for a specific address with the district itself before you write, not off a listing sheet. I go deeper on how district lines price across the metro in Columbus school districts and home values.

How Much More Is Property Tax in Dublin Than Westerville?

Franklin County Auditor, tax year 2025 effective residential rates: 69.76 mills in taxing district 273, City of Dublin in Washington Township with Dublin schools. 63.59 mills in district 080, City of Westerville. Dublin is the higher rate, which surprises people who assume it runs the other way.

What that turns into on a real bill: on the 2026 closings between $500,000 and $600,000, the median annual tax carried on the listing was $9,448 in Dublin and $7,780 in Westerville. Those are the county's billed 2025 amounts on the auditor's value, not a rate applied to the sale price, so treat them as what the last owner paid rather than what you will pay.

$1,668 a year. About $139 a month, every month, before you have moved a stick of furniture. It shows up in your escrow, so it also shows up in what a lender will approve you for.

Dublin's rate varies a lot by district, since parts of the city sit in Union and Delaware counties and in other school districts. I ran all seven in Dublin property tax rates and what you actually pay.

Commute Geography Beats Both

Dublin sits northwest, on the US 33 and I-270 corridors. Westerville sits northeast, on I-71 and SR-3. For most buyers that map decision outranks either price table above.

Buyers fall for a town that works against their daily geography all the time. Before you shortlist either one, draw your commute. If your week runs west and northwest, Dublin. East and northeast, Westerville. If you pick the wrong side of the beltway you will feel it twice a day for as long as you own the house.

Which One Fits Your Budget?

Dublin if your budget is above $650,000 and you want a real field to choose from, if your week runs northwest, or if you are targeting the Dublin district lines specifically. You will pay more per foot and more in tax, and you will have more to look at.

Westerville if your budget is $300,000 to $600,000. There were 620 resales under $500,000 there this year against 334 in Dublin, and between $500,000 and $600,000 you get the same square footage for $21,000 less at the median, five years newer, with a tax bill about $139 a month lighter.

Either way, buy on the closed comps for the specific street and district, not on the town's median. The medians in this post cover 1,659 houses. Yours is one of them.

If you want to know what your current place is worth before you shop, start with a home value estimate. If you want the street-level version of Dublin, I published Dublin, Powell, Westerville and New Albany compared.

Thinking about buying or selling in Dublin or Westerville? Let's talk. Send me the address at calendly.com/adam-geuy or 937-239-2919 and I will run your numbers against the closed comps on that street, not the town median.

All figures from Columbus and Central Ohio MLS closed sales, January 1 through September 14, 2026, and the Franklin County Auditor 2025 tax rate by taxing district. Data is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Verify current figures before making offer decisions.

Adam Geuy, Realtor - Blacktree Realty | ABR, PSA, SRS | License #2020007964