Cincinnati Ohio: The BEST and WORST rental area

[Ashley Kebreau]

Hello BP - I'm looking into purchasing a multi-family rental in Cincinnati Ohio and currently researching the market. I'd appreciate you sharing your experience regarding:

1.different neighborhoods, 2. crime, 3. cash flow/ consistency ( are the renters paying on-time)  4. vacancy 4. issues to look out for 

Thank you!

[Evan Polaski]

@Ashley Kebreau, I live in Cincinnati and am happy to help where I can and will give you what I know about a property you find.  If you are looking within the city limits in particular, you cannot classify neighborhoods, as many have good pockets and bad pockets.  For instance, I live in Pleasant Ridge and love it.  But there are spots within Pleasant Ridge that I would not buy property, typically because of the crime and therefore tenant selection.  The same can be said for zip codes, as most are like the neighborhoods, good areas and bad areas.

I will also note that we have a fair amount of little villages and townships within Cincinnati, so real estate taxes can fluctuate fairly widely.  You may also have income tax due at a local level.  Cincinnati has city income tax, and a lot of the villages have their own on any income earned in that jurisdiction.

As you get out of town and further into the suburbs, you get some normalization generally.  From my experience, if you are feeding into a good school, you will likely have little problem renting, so I would check specific school ratings for each property you are looking at.