POLL: Areas to avoid in PGH - Guidance for new and old investors

[Clayton Hepler]

POLL: What are the areas to NOT invest in in Pittsburgh and the surround areas? This can be defined at C- or below areas that are the biggest headaches. There is a lot of speculation in the market today with the "next up and coming area" and a lot of these are local crappier areas that just look like they are improving because the cost of housing is going up everything in America. This post is to serve as a community resource to separate the wheat from the chaff or the hype for the real...

I know @Alex Deacon @Jeremy Taggart, @Anthony Angotti, and @Jim K. have opinions about this...

[David Lee Hall, III]

• "Inner City" parts of Aliquippa. 6th Ave & the like. There isn't a bulldozer big enough. I once took an investor to Baker Street and his response was "OMG, it was like entering a 3rd world nation. I didn't know there were places like this in the USA."
• Too many to list, but many of the old mining towns. Unless you wanted to buy the entire thing and make a little gentrification community. They aren't generally violent, but everyone knows everyone's business, the houses (many duplexes) were not built to last, and there is no demand. Example: Chestnut Ridge PA
• The Bottoms. Really this can go for many places similar, Aliquippa has the same type of area will mill houses right next to the old plant/mill. Similar to the old coal towns, not built to last. Usually water issues. 
• Monessen. I don't go on buy appointments there often, only a few times a year. There has not been one in the last 3 years where the owner did not talk about a shootout in the ally behind the house or down on the street corner. 
• Donora, aside from Cement City. I have generally found it extremely depressing. Clairton and Charleroi have similar vibes. You can do them, but I don't see a rise in home values anytime soon, financing can be hard to do a BRRRR, as can keeping costs under control. It is very street-specific. I have been on buy appointments to 5 different units on Conrad in Charleroi. We bought one for $1 and lost out to another investor for $9k on one. The others were didn't even bother offering.
• 2/3rds of McKeesport. I like to keep my tools when I work on a place. 
• There are a lot of weird little areas given our geography. Example: Pull out Google Maps and go over to Streets Run Road. Where it and 885 diverge you are going to see several little streets wind up the side of the hill to the east of the intersection. I had an appointment at the next to last house on Granger. This thing was tucked in a ravine. Had at least 40 steps down to it, and no off street. It was also around the corner of the hollow so you didn't have a view like some of the houses higher up the hill. The place was 100% functionally obsolete. 
• Something without running water access. I kid you not. One of my partners last week had an appointment that used a cistern. They had to have potable water trucked in. 
• I guess some of those were more general than specific areas! :-D