Sunbury's 2026 construction pipeline mostly isn't building the kind of house most move-up buyers come looking for. Through July 2026, the city's own zoning report counted 354 residential units in development for the year. Of those, 294 were multifamily and 60 were single-family. The 2024 annual recap used a slightly different measure, units approved, and it showed close to the opposite split: 171 single-family and 120 multifamily out of 291.
Meanwhile, Columbus REALTORS' September 2026 Local Market Update for the Sunbury corporate area lists 23 homes for sale and 1.8 months of supply. The cranes are up and the plats keep getting approved, yet the shelf of homes you can actually buy stays short.
What the September Report Says to a Buyer Writing Offers This Fall
Start with the friction a buyer runs into, because it comes before any question about the pipeline. Here are the September 2026 figures for the Sunbury corporate area, compared with September 2025:
- Homes for sale: 23, down from 25
- Months of supply: 1.8, down from 2.0
- Median sale price: $504,900, up 1.0%
- Median days on market until sale: 25, down from 28
- Homes that went under contract: 6, down from 20
- Share of original list price received: 98.8%, down from 100.1%
The last two lines matter most. Low supply usually suggests bidding wars, but sellers in September 2026 received a little less than their original asking price. Year to date through September, median days on market reached 50, up from 40 over the same stretch of 2025. The year-to-date median sale price of $500,000 is up just 1.6%. Prices are holding steady and buyers have some room on terms. What they lack is choice. With 23 homes on the market, a buyer with a specific list, such as a detached house, a certain lot size, or a first-floor primary suite, may find that only a handful of homes fit at any given time.
The six homes that went under contract in September also bear watching. Contracts become closings a month or two later, so that thin count points to a light set of closed sales heading into late fall.
What the City's Active Projects Are Building
The city's July 2026 zoning report also tracks each active subdivision by how many units have permission to build and how many have permission to be lived in, counted since each project began. Sorted by housing type, it looks like this:
| Project | Housing type | Total units | Permitted to build | Permitted to occupy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woodland Lake | Apartments | 451 | 274 | 0 |
| Northport Place | Long-stay residential hotel | 154 | 154 | 0 |
| Kintner Crossing | Townhomes and patio homes | 188 | 39 | 0 |
| Ravines at Meadow Ridge | Not specified in the report | 744 | 312 | 312 |
| Price Ponds | Pulte homes | 336 | 232 | 202 |
| Eagle Creek Highlands | Pulte detached single-family | 239 | 0 | 0 |
Woodland Lake, the largest active project, is all apartments. Its zoning text calls for 211 ranch-style apartment homes and 240 three-story breezeway apartments, and it describes the project as a response to the master plan's call for more variety in a city where traditional single-family homes make up 71.1% of housing units. The site sits north of the future Sunbury Parkway extension, east of 3Bs&K Road, south of Route 36, and west of I-71. The Delaware Gazette reported a Woodland Lake lot split approved on behalf of Wilcox Communities.
Northport is not conventional housing at all. According to Citizen Portal's account of the January 2025 council hearing, the applicant, Metro Development, described a long-stay, hotel-style residential use: seven buildings on about 6.369 acres along State Route 36/37. City staff later listed 154 approved units.
Kintner Crossing sits between the two categories. It totals 188 units, 81 single-family patio homes and 107 townhomes. Section 2 alone, north of Cheshire Road and west of Cherry Street, holds 63 townhomes in 12 buildings plus 42 single-family homes, according to the Delaware Gazette. D.R. Horton is building it, with a model home on South Kintner Parkway. The patio homes add to the for-sale supply, but they are a lower-maintenance option than four-bedroom colonials.
None of the projects in the first three rows had a single unit cleared for occupancy as of July 2026. They will add a lot of households when they open. Of the three, only Kintner Crossing is being sold as individual homes, and most of its units are townhomes.
The Detached-Home Pipeline, in the Order It Arrives
For a buyer who wants a new detached house in Sunbury, the real pipeline is much smaller than 354 units, and it comes in a sequence:
- Price Ponds is near its end. Pulte's final phase got approval with 32 homes in section four and 70 in section five. In July 2026, 232 of 336 units had permission to build, which leaves about 104 still to come. The Gazette also reported that Millers Cove and Sunbury Meadows had sold out.
- Walnut Ridge is small and early. Drees Homes' proposed 27-home subdivision off Old 3C Highway, south of Big Walnut Elementary School, came before the Planning and Zoning Commission on May 26, 2026, and won a 5-0 vote. The final plat still has to go back to the commission and then to City Council.
- Eagle Creek Highlands is the big one, and it hasn't started. Pulte's development text calls for 239 detached single-family homes. The text scheduled Phase I to begin in January 2025 or after engineering plans were approved, whichever came later. As of July 2026, the city showed none of its 239 units with permission to build. On July 27, 2026, the commission approved the preliminary plat for Section 2: 54 homes on about 20.6 acres, plus a neighborhood park with a splash pad, playground, pavilion, and pickleball courts. Section 2 extends Rogers, Jett, and Dairy avenues, as reported by Delaware Source.
Put together, those three projects show a gap. Price Ponds is winding down before Eagle Creek Highlands begins pulling permits. Until that gap closes, the detached homes on Sunbury's shelf are mostly resales.
The city's yearly count of new-build permits fits that pattern. It reached 183 in 2024, fell to 124 in 2025, and stood at 93 through July 22, 2026.
Why the Intel and Data Center Headlines Don't Explain the Shelf
Buyers comparing Delaware County suburbs often assume Sunbury's market follows the Intel project in nearby New Albany. That schedule has moved a long way. In a February 28, 2025 message posted to Intel's newsroom, the company said it planned to finish construction of Mod 1 in 2030 and begin operations between 2030 and 2031. In March 2026, NBC4 reported that Intel's state update showed about $1.4 billion invested in Ohio in 2025 and no further schedule changes. None of the local planning or market reports reviewed for this post ties Sunbury's prices or approvals to Intel. A flat year-to-date median is hard to square with a large speculative premium.
The proposed Amazon data center is also a land-use issue, not a supply issue. In April 2026, Delaware Source reported that City Council passed a moratorium halting further data center activity through January 31, 2027, and the mayor described the Amazon project as on hold. Buyers looking at homes near the Sunbury Parkway and I-71 corridor can follow that item through council agendas. It does not add or remove for-sale housing.
Reading a Market That Closes a Dozen Homes a Month
Sunbury's monthly figures rest on small numbers. The corporate area recorded 24 closed sales in August 2026 and 11 in September 2026. With so few sales, one large home can move the average a lot. In September 2026, the average sale price jumped 23.4% to $583,127, while average price per square foot actually fell 1.2% to $214.09. Together, those two numbers mean bigger homes made up more of that month's sales. The median rose just 1.0%, which is a better guide to what a typical buyer paid.
Price per square foot is steadier. It averaged $216.06 year to date through September 2026, essentially the same as the $215.93 recorded over the same period of 2025. For a buyer, that's the more useful number. Sunbury homes are selling at about the same value per foot as a year ago, and the scarcity shows up as less choice, not higher prices.
The figures above cover the city of Sunbury. Galena does not have its own Columbus REALTORS series. The broader Big Walnut Local School District report, which takes in more ground than either town, showed an August 2026 median of $580,000 and 2.5 months of supply. That's a different market than the Sunbury corporate area, and shoppers who search both should compare them separately.
A Few Questions Buyers Ask About Sunbury's Pipeline
Will Woodland Lake's apartments ease the for-sale shortage? Not directly. Woodland Lake's zoning text describes all 451 of its units as apartments, so they add a different kind of housing than the detached homes that show up in the monthly for-sale count.
When will Eagle Creek Highlands homes be available? No public date exists. After the July 27, 2026 preliminary approval, the next steps are a final plat before the Planning and Zoning Commission and then City Council. The city's monthly zoning reports will show when permits begin.
Do patio homes at Kintner Crossing count as single-family? The Delaware Gazette described Kintner's 81 patio homes as single-family patio homes. They are detached-style homes built for lower upkeep, which makes them a different product from a traditional subdivision house.
If you're weighing Sunbury against other Delaware County suburbs, Angelina Fox-Smith & Company can pull current resale comps by housing type and walk you through which approved projects could affect your timeline. Schedule a free consultation, and we'll put the city's zoning reports next to this month's listings for you.
