Should I buy in Philly?

[Weis Sherdel]

I am looking to buy and hold a SFR in neighborhood of $60-$80K with CAP rates of 9%+. Philly interests me because it offers those numbers and it's only 2 hours drive from me (I live in DC).

However, I am hearing mixed things about the macro-economic health of the city.  Philly was the only major metro area (in a list of 12) that posted negative job growth in 2014.  The current unemployment rate is 7.1% for Philadelphia while it's 5.2 for PA and about the same in the nation.  Plus, crime appears to be an issue.  My questions:

1) From a macro-economic view (job and population growth), is Philly the right place to invest?  Can you substantiate your answer?

2) Are there reputable turnkey companies you can recommend?

3) I have heard that West and North Philly should be avoided, but Philly is a block by block neighborhood.  Any recommendations on these neighborhoods in the western side of Philly:

- Intersection of Cedar and 60th (Cobbs Creek Pkwy/Christian St neighborhood)

- Intersection of Baltimore Ave and 56th (Angora)

The neighborhood in northern side of Philly is intersection of Wister St and Chetten Ave.

Thank you very much for taking time to help me.

-weis

[Nancy L.]

Philly has a lot of very different neighborhoods and subsections of the population, like cities within a city. It has some really bad parts where crime is rampant and unemployment is really high, and some really good parts that are reasonably safe and have almost no unemployment. So as far as who your tenants will be, what their job prospects are, and how safe your property will be, it depends on what part of Philly you choose to make your investment in! My observation is that the good neighborhoods have been growing. Also believe I read somewhere that the young, educated, professional population has been growing (sticking around after going to college here -- we have a lot of colleges attracting in people from out of the area). Our job market is also based on largely on academia and health care, both stable/growing industries. There's my pitch for Philly, or part of it anyway! :-)

As far as West Philly, the best parts are in University City, close to Drexel and Penn! Also far on the other side of that area, practically in the suburbs, are sections like Overbrook, which can be nice too.