Are you active in the Indiana/Indianapolis real estate market?

[Joseph Beazley]

I am from California and I’ll be coming to Indianapolis the first week of June to get a feel for the area. If you invest in the area or have any experience with the area and like to talk real estate, would love to meet up and chat! Beginners, agents, brokers, contractors, property managers, long time investors welcome! Or if you know of anyone, please let me know. Hope to hear from any of you

[Ross Denman]

@Joseph Beazley I am a local investor and the business developer for a property management company. I'd be happy to meet while you're in town if you have time. I always recommend visiting the city yourself as Indy can be very street by street and often time marketing descriptions can be very misleading and you have to have an understanding of the city. I've met with several OOS investors this year already that were very surprised that the homes/areas that they were about to purchase as they were not what they expected. Here are some recommendations on areas to visit while here...

Visit the "hotspots" in town.

• Broad Ripple
• Irvington
• Mass Ave

Visit the already gentrified and/or established areas. Buy/hold deals are hard to come by as the areas have become too pricey, but it will give you an idea of where things are headed.

• Fountain Square
• Bates-Hendricks
• Arsenal Heights
• Woodruff Place
• Herron-Morton
• Meridian Kessler
• Old Northside

Solid and still up and coming areas - These are pre-WWII homes and usually need quite a bit of work if they haven't been fully rehabbed already.

• Mapleton-Fall Creek
• So Bro (South Broad Ripple)... this is not 46218, look at 46205
• Butler-Tarkington (north of 42nd St)
• Irvington
• Emerson Heights

Pre-WWII areas with high investment property density (Listed from my favorite to least favorite.)

• Eagledale
• Cumberland
• Farley
• Devington
• Biltmore Heights
• Drexel Gardens
• University Heights
• Audubon Gardens
• South Lawrence Township/Northern Warren Township. Be careful here... familiarize yourself with crime maps

Up and Coming Areas - These are where you'll find the majority of wholesale deals. Be careful in these areas and do your due diligence. I'm not a fan of putting most of my clients in these areas unless they understand the risks.

• St Clair Pl
• Brookside Park
• Windsor Park
• Christian Park
• Garfield Park
• Little Flower
• Englewood
• Tuxedo Park
• Bosart-Brown
• Crown Hill
• Near Westside

Very tricky areas for OOS Investors. HIgh violent crime and/or lots of blighted homes

• Brightwood-Martindale
• Anywhere near N Sherman Dr, N Shadeland Ave, or N Post Rd
• State Fair Grounds area
• Haughville
• Riverside / Near NW Side / King Commons
• 42nd St between Post and Mitthoefer
• Mars Hill - suppressed property values from flood zones and RR Tracks
• Ravenswood - suppressed property values from flood zones
• South of Rhodius Park Area (very industrial feel)

Other places worth checking out

• Beech Grove
• Speedway (good luck finding a good price here)
• Southport/Homecroft
• Wanamaker

Things to take note of:

• Crime
• Flood zones
• Railroad tracks
• Understanding the school systems and district boundaries. I invest differently in the IPS school district than I do the other 8 exterior townships
• Industrial areas (wastewater treatment, landfill, dump, recycling facilities, etc.)

Honestly, that barely scratches the surface, but that will give you some things to check out while you're here. While there are several opinions of some  of these areas, I recommend visiting yourself. Sterling's Blog - Grading Indianapolis Neighborhoods has a pretty good map you can go by to begin gauging some areas. Indy is a great city. An investor friend of mine from NY likes to say... "Indy punches above its weight class."

There are several city initiatives going on right now that you may find interesting as well. You can find out about most of them at http://liscindianapolis.org/. The city has spent a lot of time and money on the near east side and is now starting to do more out west as well.

I usually recommend my OOS investors to look at newer areas on the outskirts of town as these are much safer with more predictable liabilities, but there are a lot of strategies for every different area.