Are certain board up house areas in Baltimore turning around?....

[Jy Kasnett]

Is it my imagination or are certain inner city areas where there are alot of boarded up houses starting to gentrify or turn around?? In other words is it a good investment to buy these $5,000 or $10,000 houses now?

[Stephanie P.]

Originally posted by @Jy Kasnett:

Is it my imagination or are certain inner city areas where there are alot of boarded up houses starting to gentrify or turn around?? In other words is it a good investment to buy these $5,000 or $10,000 houses now?

It depends on where you're looking.

If you're looking at houses for 5K, you're probably looking in neighborhoods where they shot The Wire and Homicide, Life on the Street.  Those neighborhoods are not turning around.  Personally and from the crime statistics, I would say they are getting worse.  If you're looking at North Ave and Harford Ave., I doubt that's turning around either.  5K.  10K.  Stay away.  Move on up to the 50 and 60K houses that will eventually go for 200.  That's where you want to be. Look where you see decent corner neighborhood bars that are busy on Fridays and Saturdays.  Find the places where the brick has been freshly pointed up and the marble steps are scrubbed.  That's where you want to buy.  If the windows are broken and there are a ton of board ups, it's going to be too long to turn around.  Not just my opinion, but I join many others and say go to the county.