Specific advice needed for Lawrenceville Pittsburgh multifamily

[Arifa Khandwalla]

I own small commercial multifamily B class property that is being surrounded by newly built rental apartments in Lawrenceville in a prime location.  I am trying to decide whether to sell or hold on. We bought it 2 years ago and turned the building around but the building needs 50-75k to deal with deferred maintenance issues. All our renters are young professionals employed either in tech or in UPitt or UPMC. Hundreds of new upscale units have come on the marker specifically the Arsenal. Its getting harder to rent and they are giving away 1 months free rent etc. Our taxes are being appealed by the school board and will most certainly go up. If we sell, we will at best make a nominal profit so the purpose of selling is not to make a profit but to reduce risk   and the headache of maintaining a long-distance property (I am out of state).

What is the upside in Pittsburgh ? Will rents increase with time or stay stagnant or lower ?The question is will employment continue to increase and absorb the new apartments. This area is driven by tech but there are no headquarters in Pittsburgh for medium sized tech companies.  I am concerned that population decreases in Pittsburgh have not halted. The medical industry continues to increase in Pittsburgh, but their patients are not increasing. In fact as the older population passes away what happen to these jobs ?

[Phil Anderson]

Whether Pittsburgh as a whole is growing in population is irrelevant - let's pretend the population decreases by 50% - it may not matter if the people left all want to live in Lawrenceville.   Rents will increase in some areas, decrease in others, and stay stagnant in more.  

Lawrenceville has had the biggest growth over the past 10 years, so the real question is what sort of growth will a neighborhood that has already had 1000% growth for the past 10 years have in the next 10?