Advice about my first SFR purchase in South Bend

[Vishal Didwania]

Hello all, I recently went to South Bend over this past weekend and looked at a handful of SFRs. Some were in better shape than others. I'm looking at a place west of downtown and Marion street between Colfax and Route 20 that was built in 1999 and that is a 3 bed, 1 bath that is selling for $50k and probably will get rent of around $700/mo and currently getting $605/mo. tenant is M2M. It is about 2.5 miles from Notre Dame. Property tax around $600. I think the price is a little high for the location and time it has been on the market. I would appreciate some help from others in terms of if this is a reasonable area to invest, typical rents for this location, and what would be a reasonable purchase price assuming no major rehab ~5k?

Thank you!

[Aaron Linden]

I can’t tag Vishal for some reason so hopefully you see this.

It sounds like you are on MLK drive between 20 and Colfax. Marion turns into MLK south of 20. So my advice is predicated on that.

This is a difficult area to give advice on. It is in general not a bad area BUT just to the north and west of there it isn’t so nice so be careful. I think your rents are pretty close and taxes maybe 100-150 too low.

I also think this area has a possibility for gentrification as South Bend gentrifies.

This decision depends highly on what your risk tolerance is and how you will manage it.