Investing in a higher crime area

[Robert Godfrey]

Any tips for investing in a high crime area? In this situation the crime becomes virtually non-existent after a 3 block radius and it's just that this duplex happens to be right in the middle of those 6 blocks. It's in pretty good shape and doesn't need repairs (according to the owner), the area doesn't have a problem with apartments getting rented according to comps, and the job market is great. It's just that this area isn't the best at the moment and the seller is asking 25% higher than the Zillow zestimate so it's been sitting for almost a year. Running my comps I think I can get 10%+ CoC Roi at even his high asking price. Should I offer 10-20% lower since it's been sitting for a long time and in a high crime area? Or should I just not even bother with the headache of a higher crime area? Thanks!

[Michael Noto]

Expect a higher return on paper and expect to fully earn that higher return in real life with the trade off being time, patience, and aggravation. Essentially if the only metric that is important to you is your bottom line return and you do not mind spending the extra time in order to achieve that one goal these rentals make sense. If not, I would pass.

These types of rentals are very management time intensive and have frequent maintenance issues which will likely require you personally to remedy any maintenance issues because that is really the only way to fully realize the paper returns I mentioned above.