Scan the Block · for buying a home

Know the block before it becomes your block.

You are about to make the largest purchase of your life on a street you have walked maybe six times. The city already holds a decade of records on that street — what was filed, cited, permitted and reported around this building — and this report reads all of it in a few seconds, compared with the city so you can tell a number from a normal.

The questions it answers

Is there an open code-enforcement case on this parcel?
What work was permitted, and what was not?
What will my property tax actually be?
At what Ohio River stage does the water reach it?
When did it last sell, and for how much?
What has been filed against this building?

The sections that earn their keep

What will come upOpen permits, retrofit obligations, disclosure triggers — the items that surface in escrow, surfaced before you are in it.

Code enforcement on this parcelEvery case the city holds open against the parcel, by its own category — buildings with residences, commercial buildings, zoning. No case is reported as no case, never as compliance.

The building's permitsWhat was legally built, what is still open, and the paperwork you would inherit at close.

Crime, by yearCounted within your radius and set against an average area the same size, so a busy corridor reads as what it is.

What the block actually sold forOhio discloses sale prices and the county records them, so nearby transfers carry the price rather than an estimate. One sale per parcel, because the county holds the last transfer and not a history.

What is licensed to make noiseThe places nearby holding a live entertainment permit, and the class the city licensed each under. Six daytime walks past a building will not tell you what nine o'clock sounds like.

Work permitted in the street outsideWhat the city has already agreed can be dug up around the address, and until when — the thing buyers find out the week after they move in.

Written for you

How to read a Cincinnati reportWho keeps which record here, what the county's market value is and is not, and the one number this city publishes that most cities will not.The county's value, and the price it actually sold forHamilton County reappraises on a cycle rather than on sale, and Ohio discloses what a building sold for. Both facts change how you read the top of the report.What Cincinnati files, and under what nameThirteen filing types worth watching, including five trades this city records separately and one category that means a building has just been boarded up.Cincinnati's record, word by wordAuditor, market value, board of revision, barricading, STARS — what each means here, and which body writes it down.

See it on a real address

Run any Cincinnati address and the report reads that city's portal live, at the moment you ask. Plans start at $49 a month, billed monthly or annually, and re-reading a report you have run is always free.

See the plans Try an address

Also written for: renting · owner or landlord · agent or broker · investor · developer or builder · lender or underwriter · insurance · hoa or property management · attorney or other professional · contractor or trade