Same six hundred thousand dollars. Same loan. Same monthly principal and interest. The houses you walk through and the bill you write every January look nothing alike.
I pulled every closed single-family sale in Powell and in the New Albany-Plain Local School District over a recent trailing twelve months from the MLS. 676 closings in Powell. 215 in New Albany. Real comps, real per-square-foot math, real tax bills. Then I ran the carrying-cost differential at the current 30-year fixed rate of 6.10 percent. Here is what the data says about the price ladder in these two markets, and what your $600K is really buying in each.
The gap is real, and the data says so
Over the trailing twelve months, the typical Powell single-family home closed at $573,120 in 13 days at $233.88 per square foot. The typical New Albany NAPLS home closed at $750,000 in 6 days at $273.19 per square foot.
That is roughly a 31 percent premium on price and a 17 percent premium per square foot, on homes of similar size and age. New Albany also moves faster despite costing more, with a median days on market about half of Powell's. That gap is exactly what decides where your $600,000 lands.
Where $600K lands in Powell
At $600,000 in Powell you are shopping above the median, in mainstream move-up inventory, not entry-level. Over the trailing twelve months I count 122 closings in the $580K to $680K band. The depth is there. The dominant subdivisions in that band include Woodcrest Crossing, Scioto Reserve, Golf Village, Olentangy Ridge, and Big Bear Farms, established executive product along the Olentangy corridor and near the Polaris job density.
Five recent closings to anchor the picture:
- 3954 Delwood Drive, Wedgewood Place, sold $596,500, 2,642 sqft, 4 bed 5 bath, built 2005, 10 days on market.
- 3967 Colts Reign Drive, Woodcrest Crossing, sold $610,585, 2,620 sqft, 4 bed 3 bath, new construction (2026), 76 days.
- 83 Forest Ridge Court, Olentangy Ridge, sold $600,000, 2,280 sqft, 4 bed 3 bath, built 1985, 9 days.
- 165 Briarbend Boulevard, Bartholomew Run, sold $585,000, 2,594 sqft, 4 bed 3 bath, built 1988, 14 days.
- 9281 Marlebury End, Big Bear Farms, sold $660,000, 2,587 sqft, 3 bed 4 bath, built 2001, 2 days.
At Powell's median rate near $234 per square foot, $600,000 buys you about 2,565 square feet. In practice that is four bedrooms, two and a half to three baths, a real basement, a two or three-car garage, and a quarter acre or more.
Where $600K lands in New Albany
At $600,000 in New Albany NAPLS you are shopping below the median by a wide margin. The median sale up there runs near $750,000 and the average near $999,000. The luxury core runs into seven figures and drags the whole market up. Your $600K is upper-middle, not top.
The depth thins out at this band, with about 36 closings in the $580K to $680K range. The workhorses at this price tier are the Hampsted communities (Village, Green, Heath), plus Windsor and Nottingham Trace. Hampsted Village specifically is established product from the mid-1990s and early 2000s. Nottingham Trace is the M/I and Pulte new-build option at this number.
Five recent closings:
- 5077 Turner Close, Hampsted Village, sold $630,000, 2,300 sqft, 4 bed 3 bath, built 1996, 1 day on market.
- 8366 Marwithe Place, sold $645,000, 2,310 sqft, 4 bed 4 bath, built 2011, 44 days.
- 7470 Linden Lane, Nottingham Trace, sold $621,570, 3 bed 2 bath, new construction (2026), 28 days.
- 5069 Cloudberry Pass, Hampsted Green, sold $625,000, 2,576 sqft, 5 bed 4 bath, built 2001, 35 days.
- 7120 Connaught Drive, Hampsted Village, sold $610,000, 2,236 sqft, 4 bed 3 bath, built 2001, 2 days.
At New Albany's median rate near $273 per square foot, $600,000 buys you about 2,196 square feet. That is roughly 370 square feet less than the same dollar bought in Powell, about the size of an extra bedroom and a flex room. Most of the inventory in this band is twenty-five-year-old product, and the bones reflect that.
The tax bill differential
This is where most buyers stop paying attention, and it costs them.
I pulled the actual property tax field for every one of those closings. Powell's effective tax rate, computed as median annual tax divided by median sale price, ran near 1.488 percent. New Albany NAPLS ran near 1.619 percent.
On a $600,000 home: Powell costs roughly $8,930 a year in property tax, New Albany roughly $9,712. The differential is about $782 a year, or roughly $65 a month. Over ten years, that is roughly $7,800 in additional carrying cost in New Albany before any reassessment. Not catastrophic, but not zero, and it scales as values rise.
You will see a bigger number thrown around for New Albany, the auditor's gross effective rate near 2.4 percent, which would put a $600K home over $14,000 a year. That reflects gross millage before Ohio's 10 percent and 2.5 percent residential rollbacks plus homestead exemption where eligible. The actual bills people pay are lower. Use the rate that shows up on the MLS sold record against the actual sale price when you stress-test your monthly budget. Always confirm the parcel-specific bill with the county auditor.
The schools are not the tiebreaker
Both Powell and New Albany are served by districts that have earned five stars on Ohio's state report card. Olentangy Local Schools, which serves much of Powell, and New Albany-Plain Local Schools both rate at the top of the state on the published report card. Pull both report cards yourself at reportcard.education.ohio.gov, and confirm the assigned schools for any specific address, because boundaries do not always follow municipal lines.
The point is that the report-card data does not separate these two. If anyone tells you one district is better than the other, they are not reading the data. Decide on the factors that actually differ: price, square footage, lot size, commute, taxes, and build style.
The Intel factor
What does differ is the job density. The committed Intel investment in the New Albany campus is now over $28 billion across both modules, with Module 1 targeting operations in 2030-2031. The New Albany International Business Park surrounding it spans about 12,000 acres and houses over 60 companies employing more than 20,000 people, including Amgen, Alkermes, Aetna, Discover, and AEP. That job density is the reason New Albany's residential premium has held through rate cycles that knocked other premium suburbs back.
Powell does not have an Intel. It has the Polaris job corridor, proximity to Dublin and Bridge Park, and easy reach to the northwest 270 belt. Strong and diversified, just not in the same gravity well as the Silicon Heartland buildout.
The carpenter read on the build
I come from a line of German carpenters, and I walk a listing the way my grandfather walked a job site. Foundation first, kitchen second. Here is the build difference at $600K.
In New Albany, the community covenants enforce four-sided brick. Hampsted, Windsor, Nottingham Trace, and the newer Bevelhymer corridor product all carry brick wraps on all four elevations as a requirement, not an upgrade. White plank fence, tight lot setbacks, lot sizes in the Hampsted product running roughly 0.15 to 0.25 acre. You are paying for the look and you are getting it.
In Powell, brick fronts are common but full brick wraps are not standard. The mainstream move-up product runs brick front with vinyl or HardiePlank on the sides and back. Lot sizes are bigger, usually 0.25 acres and up, sometimes much more in Big Bear Farms or Scioto Reserve. You get more land, more siding to maintain, and more flexibility on what your house looks like.
Neither is wrong. They are different design philosophies and different cost structures. If you fall for the New Albany aesthetic, know you are paying for the covenant that enforces it. If you fall for the Powell lot size, know you are looking at vinyl on three sides for the next twenty years.
What your $600K is actually deciding
In Powell at $600K: about 2,565 square feet, mainstream move-up inventory with real depth, a quarter acre or more, faster-than-balanced market, lower property tax, and proximity to Polaris and Dublin jobs.
In New Albany at $600K: about 2,196 square feet, older inventory or one of the few new-build options at this number, tight lot, very fast market, higher property tax, four-sided brick covenant, and proximity to the largest private investment in Ohio history.
You are not paying more in New Albany for a bigger or newer house at this number. You are paying for the covenants, the aesthetic, the address, and the Intel-adjacent job density. Neither answer is wrong. They are different answers to different questions.
If your job is on the northeast side, Intel, the business park, or downtown via 670, New Albany wins on commute. If your job is in Polaris, Dublin, the Bridge Park corridor, or the northwest belt, Powell wins on commute and buys more house for the dollar. If you want me to run the actual carrying-cost math on your specific number and the actual tax bill on the parcel you are looking at, call me. More on each market is on my Powell guide and New Albany guide, and if a luxury golf community is on your list, I compared NACC and Tartan Fields here.
Adam Geuy at NextHome Experience. 937-239-2919.