Canton / Akron ohio investing

[Chris Colangelo]

Hello, 

My wife and I currently live in southern California and as you can imagine the barriers to entry are quite high over here.  We are strongly considering moving to North Canton Ohio to be close to some relatives.  Is anyone investing in these areas?  I see houses for very low costs like 20k. But I would imagine they may not be the best units to start with because of potentially high turn over costs.  If anyone is doing deals in these areas I would love to hear about them.

Thanks in advance! 

[Dell Schlabach]

We are based in Canton, and know the areas pretty well. While we dont do rentals anymore I have friends and acquaintainances who do. A few are doing well a few not so well. 

Canton City is mostly rental city, few owner occupants, and yes you can buy a lot of houses for under 20,000. I just checked, there are 57 available on the mls for under 20k right now, 8 for under 10,000. 

There are few areas that you can buy fix and sell a house to an owner occupant. We dont even watch that market for rehab because of the difficulty in selling a house with city schools.

So be aware if you buy, you want to make sure you get a good deal and or plan on holding for the long term, you are almost defi itly going to be selling to another investor who wants to buy a cheap house. So dont expect appreciation.

Lot of houses get bought here 10-25k and sold to the california guys for 25-50 .... a year or more later when they have problems with the tenants or management companies, they want to sell, but unless they can find non local "greater fool" to buy them, they will be taking a serious hit to get rid of the property, because the locals will pay 10-25

There are a couple very good stable rental areas that you can buy houses for 25,000-35,000 rent them out for 650-850 month. Every once in a while, if you are fast/good you may be able to get a few in good rental areas for under 20,000. 

North canton is an entirely different story, different city, top ranked schools, highly desirable rehab area as well. North Canton only has one house on the market under 70,000 right now, listed at 67,000 , small bank owned being sold as is.

There is plenty of opportunity here, just beware, become familiar with the neighborhoods, before you buy, If you come to visit you can hit me up, be glad to give you my perspective, over coffee, i can introduce you to a couple landlords if you like. 

@Chris Colangelo