IF YOU GO
Homearama 2014: Carriage Hill, 6306 Princeton Road, Liberty Twp.
Show dates: through July 27
Show hours: 4 to 10 p.m. Monday - Thursday; noon to 10 p.m. Friday - Sunday. No ticket sales or admittance after 9 p.m.
Cost: Tickets can be purchased at the gate of Homearama at Carriage Hill for $14. Children under 12 are admitted at no cost. Tickets for $11 may be obtained at all Kroger stores, as well as at CincyBuilders.com. AAA members can get a $2 discount at the gate.
Liberty Twp. Community Day is scheduled for Thursday during regular show hours. Liberty residents may purchase $11 discounted tickets for Homearama. The Liberty Twp. Fire Dept, a deputy from the Butler County Sheriff's Office and township trustees and staff will be walking the show and answering any questions people may have about the broader community.
Homearama’s spotlight can shine on for years after a show ends in a host township or city, affecting more than just the overall sales of one subdivision.
This year’s show started Saturday at Carriage Hill in Liberty Twp. and features nine homes ranging in price from $1.2 to nearly $2 million. Six of the nine homes have already been sold.
Now in its 52nd installment, Homearama brings “instant credibility,” not only to the community in which it is hosted, but to the entire region, said Joe Hinson, president and CEO of the West Chester-Liberty Chamber Alliance.
“Because of what Homearama has stood for for over 50 years, people recognize that they don’t just go anywhere, and that it’s the quality of the homes, the quality of the subdivision,” Hinson said. “What it does is it brings people here, and then they recognize the importance of I-75 and the impact it has on what’s happening between Cincinnati and Dayton, on what’s happening in Liberty Twp., per se, as they build their commercial district.”
The show also helps other homes just by being in the area, according to Dan Dressman, executive director for the association.
“Homearama always drives up the values in the community and the surrounding communities,” Dressman said.
To get Homearama in the first place, a builder or developer member must submit a bid to the Cincinnati Home Builders Association suggesting a potential site for the show in the coming year, Dressman said.
“We have certain criteria that we require,” he said. “They have to have a minimum number of lots, they have to be willing to allow the builders that participate in Homearama to purchase up to two additional lots so if they happen to get a buyer during the course of a show, they have another lot or two they can build a home on.”
A site also is asked to meet certain other conditions, including being accessible via area roadways and being able to support about 1,000 parking spots. Other criteria includes having entrance and access points to the site, plus builders already building in a community or potential builders who have expressed an interest in building there.
” We can select a site, but if we don’t have builders shows up, we’re not going to have a show,” Dressman said.
The HBA also examines the amount of homes sold in a community and what the average home price has been.
“We’re not going to typically go into a community where the average sale price is $350,000 and try to do a Homearama because we know it’s not going to be a success,” Dressman said.
After written proposals are submitted, the top candidates come to the HBA and make a presentation to its board of directors and then voting occurs.
That presentation includes data to illustrate how a community can support a Homearama, including how many homes have been sold in the area, how many have been built and what the average price point is.
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Butler County has hosted 11 Homearamas. In 2013, the event at Liberty Twp.’s Carriage Hill residential development attracted more than 32,000 people. That’s 8,000 more than the 2012 show in Miami Twp and 12,000 more than the 2011 show in West Chester Twp.’s Foxborough residential development.
Don Misrach, owner of Cobblestone Development, helped bring Homearama to Foxborough in 2011, a year after the show was canceled during “one of the worst years ever in housing.”
“Being a Homearama community is a real benefit to any community because its effect lasts for years beyond the show,” he said.
“The Homearama name by itself adds a lot of credibility and cachet to a subdivision,” Misrach said. “It sort of takes it to another level.”
Misrach, who lives in a Symmes Twp. subdivision featured twice as a Homearama community, said people still visit his home and say, “Wasn’t this where there was a Homearama?”
Last decade, Homearama spent eight of its 10 installments in Warren County, with one stop in Butler County and another in Hamilton County. That kind of attention “builds excitement” area-wide and gets people to not only buy or build a home, but also improve their existing home, said Missy Stone, president of the Warren County Board of Realtors.
That helps the bottom line of area businesses dedicated to everything from total home remodels and significant additions to basic improvements and home decorating. It can be especially beneficial for the builders, decorators, architects and landscapers who helped make the show a reality.
The show’s economic impact is “just tremendous” and ripples across the community and Butler County in more ways that just residential growth, Hinson said.
“It opens up the commercial piece, it opens up opportunities for our school district,” he said. “All of us benefit from having Homearama here.”
With land still available for residential growth in both counties, future Homearamas and the economic impact they bring are a good bet, Stone said.
“If you look at the demographics of the areas that are growing right now, I think you’ll find the Warren County area and the Butler County area, certain sides of it, are very much up and coming and growing and … a lot of that has to do with the bigger companies like P&G that are bringing in executives that want to live in that area,” she said. “It really just keeps going versus capping at this point.”
Homearama being in Carriage Hill for two consecutive years already has helped sell homes in Carriage Hill. The development landing the show in 2013 boosted home sales by 40 to 50 percent compared to the previous year and enhanced sales across all price points in the expanding master plan community, according to Randy Terry, managing member for Carriage Hill developer Liberty Land.
Carriage Hill saw 19 permits pulled for new homes in 2012, 44 in 2013, and already has 40 pulled through May, according to Cincinnati-based NorthPointe Group.
Caroline McKinney, Liberty Twp.’s economic development director, said Homearama helps showcase the township and its amenities to the Greater Cincinnati area.
“It’s a great opportunity for the broader region to be reminded of the momentum and energy being created in Liberty Twp., not just commercially with the Liberty Center and Children’s Liberty Campus developments, but with some great residential developments happening in the area, too,” McKinney said. “Homearama underscores the excitement building in the township.”
Homearama highlighting West Chester Twp.’s Beckett Ridge, Wetherington Golf and Country Club and Foxborough communities provided an opportunity for the township to show off its best attributes as a place to live, work and play, according to Barb Wilson, the township’s spokeswoman.
“A lot of people come to Homearama to view a neighborhood and those homes but it’s also an opportunity for us to … tell your community’s story. You have great schools, great infrastructure, all those things that homeowners look for,” Wilson said.
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