Franklin County is Ohio's most populous county, and the City of Columbus publishes its code-enforcement cases as open data. Propertiz loads every parcel and owner from the Franklin County Auditor, about 494,000 parcels, reads the City of Columbus code-enforcement cases every night, matches each case to its parcel, and ranks the owners in Columbus who may have a reason to sell. Here is what's included on the Franklin County page today, what isn't yet, and how to read a Columbus lead.
Columbus code enforcement: the main signal
The city's code-enforcement data is updated nightly. Propertiz reads three kinds of case from it:
- Housing-code inspection cases.
- Vacant-structure inspection cases.
- Emergency orders.
Each case carries the Auditor's parcel number, so it is tied to the right property without guessing from an address. An open case counts as distress, and its weight fades as it ages. When the city closes a case, it stops counting. Several cases on one property add up to a cap, so one bad house can't crowd out the rest of the list.
A code case alone doesn't make a seller. Many owners fix the problem and move on. Combined with an absentee owner, long ownership or high estimated equity, a vacant-structure case is often how a tired landlord or an heir who lives elsewhere first shows up in the records.
Parcels and owners for the whole county
The Auditor's roll covers all of Franklin County, inside and outside Columbus: the owner, the tax mailing address, the site address, the last sale, the land use, the auditor's values, and bedrooms, baths and year built. Propertiz reloads it every month. The mailing address is what makes the owner traits work. An owner whose mailing address differs from the property is flagged as absentee, and one whose mailing address is outside Ohio as out of state.
Franklin's roll doesn't show which owners live in their homes. Ohio's homestead exemption is for seniors and disabled owners, so a parcel without it can still be owner-occupied, and Propertiz doesn't count a missing exemption against the owner.
What isn't in Franklin County yet
- Foreclosure filings. Ohio forecloses through the courts, so the first record is the complaint on the Common Pleas docket. Franklin's filings aren't included yet.
- Sheriff sale dates, for mortgage and tax foreclosures.
- Unpaid property taxes. The Treasurer's delinquent list isn't imported.
- Probate filings.
- Evictions. The Municipal Court posts monthly eviction case lists, but its robots.txt rules out automated download, so they aren't included.
- Code cases outside the City of Columbus.
Our guide to Ohio foreclosure and tax delinquency explains how those processes work, including Ohio's tax lien certificate sales, which Franklin County runs as a bulk sale.
How Columbus leads are ranked
The rules are the same in every Propertiz county. A lead needs at least one active distress signal, which in Franklin County today means an open Columbus code case. Owner traits from the Auditor's roll then add points: an absentee or out-of-state owner, long ownership and high estimated equity. A vacant-structure case on a house held for decades by an owner in another state reads very differently from a fresh housing-code complaint on a home the owner just bought, and the score reflects that.
Every lead is underwritten as a long-term rental with an equity estimate, a HUD market rent and a DSCR at your purchase price. Ohio taxes the county auditor's value, and a sale can trigger a new appraisal, so today's bill can understate a new owner's. Test your own terms with the DSCR calculator.
Working Columbus leads
All data is public under Ohio's Public Records Act (R.C. 149.43). Contact owners respectfully. Mail first; follow federal rules (TCPA, Do Not Call) and Ohio's telephone-solicitation law (R.C. Chapter 4719) for calls and texts. No leaseback or "save your home" offers to owners in foreclosure. If you assign contracts, Ohio requires a written wholesaler disclosure to the seller.
See the other Ohio counties on the Ohio coverage page.