Mason or Sycamore? Here is the real difference

What actually separates Mason and Sycamore?

The age of the houses and the distance to downtown. Mason is a city in Warren County, mostly built from the 1990s on. The Sycamore area is in Hamilton County and spread across four communities: Blue Ash, Montgomery, Sycamore Township and Symmes Township. Its homes are mostly from the 1960s to the 1980s, on older, more rolling lots with taller trees.

What does my money buy in each?

In Mason you are mostly paying for the house; in Sycamore you are mostly paying for the location. This summer a single-family home averaged about $695,000 in Mason and about $750,000 in the Sycamore school district. The typical Mason one was built around 1995 with four bedrooms and three baths; the typical Sycamore one around 1980 with four bedrooms and two and a half baths. So you pay about $55,000 more for a house about 15 years older.

That gap shows up in features. Three-car garages get common in Mason in the $600,000s; in Sycamore you rarely see them under a million. Nine-foot and vaulted ceilings are standard in Mason's 1990s homes and hard to find in Sycamore, where eight feet was the norm. I had a client set on Sycamore before she ever got here, and the eight-foot ceilings turned out to be her deciding factor. The district you think you want and the house you can live in are two different questions, and you find out which wins on the tour.

Why are so many Sycamore-area houses being torn down?

Because the land is worth more than the house. In most of Montgomery and parts of Blue Ash, a single-family home priced around $350,000 or less is usually bought as a lot, torn down and replaced with new construction, and that keeps pulling prices up. If you are a buyer, know what you are competing against. If you own an older home there, you may be sitting on more land value than you think. Ask me what yours is worth.

How do the commutes compare?

The Sycamore area wins on getting downtown; Mason wins if your work is to the north. The Sycamore communities sit on I-71 and the Ronald Reagan Highway, about 20 minutes from downtown, with Kenwood's shopping right down the street. Mason is 30 minutes or more downtown on a good day. But if you work at one of Mason's big employers or up the I-75 corridor in West Chester, Mason flips from far out to perfectly placed. It is not which one is closer; it is closer to what.

How do taxes compare?

Property taxes are closer than people expect; the income tax is where they really differ. On property tax the typical gap on a $600,000 home is about $600 to $1,200 a year, and which taxing district your street is in matters as much as the county line. On income tax, Mason, Blue Ash and Montgomery are cities with their own earnings tax and credits, while Sycamore, Symmes and Deerfield townships charge residents none. Same price, same kind of house, and the monthly cost can differ by hundreds of dollars depending on where you work. I work out the full monthly number before my buyers set a price range.

What about the schools?

I am not going to rank them for you; the state publishes the numbers. Compare Mason City Schools and Sycamore Community Schools on the Ohio School Report Card. What a website cannot tell you is which streets feed which district: the Mason district does not follow the city line, and Sycamore Township alone touches six districts. I check that on every listing before a client falls in love with it. My post Mason vs Sycamore schools goes further.

So which should I choose?

Lean Mason if you want newer construction, more house for the money and planned-neighborhood amenities, and your work points north. Kings Island, the tennis center, big parks, sidewalks and community pools: Mason does turnkey suburban life as well as anywhere in Ohio.

Lean Sycamore if a shorter drive downtown, Kenwood and the central job corridors matter most, you like established streets and mature trees, and you are open to updating a house, or you have the budget for new construction in Montgomery. Summit Park in Blue Ash and downtown Montgomery's restaurants and farmers market are a big part of the draw. Plenty of buyers start sure it is one and land on the other.