Cincinnati's Real-Estate Renaissance

Our landscape, skyline and real-estate market has metamorphosed drastically within the last decade, despite one of the worst recessions and real-estate crashes in American history. Through increased foreclosure rates in 2007 and record low real-estate pricing in 2014, few companies were strategically sound enough to scramble through unscathed.

In fact, through the recession where many companies folded, Neyer Properties CEO Dan Neyer expertly guided his company through to an increase in gains during the difficult economy. With new developments in progress today, Neyer Properties continues to help with the growth and revitalization of Cincinnati.

One new development, Harrison Greene, will bring a much-needed retail hub to the West Side of Cincinnati. "The retail center will be right on Harrison Avenue, in what I would call the retail-starved area of the West Side of Cincinnati," says Neyer. The development will house a Dewey’s Pizza, Tom+Chee, First Watch and a Graeter’s to start with, and offers more space for businesses looking to open up in the area.

"Cincinnati has been blessed and fortunate to experience real growth," says Neyer. "Improving core areas of Cincinnati is a good thing for the entire region."

Neyer explains that the company’s goal with many of its developments or acquisitions is to help build up the value of local real estate throughout the city, with the overall ideal of helping to increase the values of the communities surrounding Neyer’s properties.

In addition to the Harrison Greene development, residents can also expect to see Neyer Properties constructing in a new acute rehabilitation facility at Keystone Parke near I-71 and Dana Avenue. The development is already home to the American Red Cross Cincinnati Area Chapter headquarters. "It seems like a lot of the new developments today are driven by the medical community," says Neyer. "This is where a significant portion of the development has occurred, because of so many systemic changes happening within the medical communities."

The development at Keystone Parke will feature a 60,000-square-foot medical building to house the new acute rehabilitation hospital, to be completed in 2015.

Neyer says unlike many other cities in the Midwest, Cincinnati’s demographics favor a higher aging population, which lends itself to a stronger need for developments providing medical care, hospice treatments and nursing home facilities. Neyer says studying demographics like this within the city helps the company track where new economic and real-estate growth will be headed.

As a younger population begins to arise in Cincinnati in the future, he says Cincinnati could start to see the face of dining and retail shift a little throughout the city, to accommodate the change in demographic need.

It’s this ability to read Cincinnati and predict economic trends that has kept Neyer Properties at the forefront of the city’s real estate markets. Through the economic and housing declines from 2001 to 2003, Neyer Properties is one of the very few companies to actually have come out of things having grown substantially. Neyer says this was because the company was able to switch gears rather quickly, changing its strategy from constructing new developments to acquiring existing ones at a much lower market price.

"Our fastest growth periods have usually been during the most turbulent economic times," says Neyer. "In the recession period of 2001 to 2003, we had a very strong growth period. This is usually tied to when a real estate market economy suffers, because the opportunities to buy increase."

Once the company switched gears, it began to adjust its strategy to purchasing low-cost properties and flipping them to bring in new businesses and higher interest to different areas of the city. "We identify areas and properties where we can infuse capital and bring the value of the real estate back up," says Neyer. "So, we usually work with properties that are in distress and have suffered due to insufficient investment of capital. The tenants leave, maintenance is deferred and we come in and re-work the property."

Neyer explains that a good bone structure and community interest is all it takes to pique Neyer Properties’ interests in buying. However, with the ever-changing market shifting once more, Neyer says the company has worked its way back toward the face of new developments. He explains that the company stopped buying properties right before the housing bubble burst in 2007. "Now, while acquisitions are still available, they’re more difficult because there’s more money chasing fewer acquisitions," says Neyer.

However, with this new shift in priorities, Cincinnati can expect to see several new Neyer Properties developments springing up throughout the city. "Many times we’ll go into an area that has what I could classify as under-performing real estate assets," says Neyer. "By improving the real estate, you improve the community and the area in which you work, which is very satisfying to me, on a personal level."

In addition to Keystone Parke and Harrison Greene, the company will be working with the City of Cincinnati and the Ohio Department of Transportation to improve many areas of the Queensgate neighborhoods as well. "If I look at the Queensgate area, it is probably the largest mass of land the city of Cincinnati has with the closest proximity to downtown Cincinnati," says Neyer. "But it’s mostly under-utilized to the value it could be. We’re working to improve the connectivity of the area, because if you improve the connectivity, you improve the value."

For more information, call 513.563.7555 or visit www.neyer1.com.