All Forum Posts by: Anton Ivanov

@Eric Black Thanks, I'll send you a PM.

After reading your guys' comments and thinking about, I'm going to pass on this one and most likely just exclude this (and a couple of similar) neighborhoods from my search.

Thank you all for your responses (and so quick too!). As I was before, I'm leaning more and more toward skipping this one.

@Eric Black I am not purchasing this property specifically for price appreciation, I'm purchasing it more as a buy&hold wealth-building investment (through cash flow, rent-paydown and appreciation). But you bring up a valid point that if I want to exit in the future and the price has fallen or remained the same, my overall ROI would be little, or possibly negative.

A little off-topic, but yes, I have considered investing out of state many times, because based on the research I've done, cap-rates and cash-on-cash returns suck in San Diego, especially if you are using traditional financing like I am. The problem I have is that I literally don't know anybody in other states and I'm not the best at making connections. But I feel like without having a solid team in place, or at least another seasoned investor who lives in the area, I would be gambling with my money. I know these are just excuses though, haha!

@Aaron Junck I usually use a 10% vacancy rate for all my cash flow calculations, although perhaps for an area like this I should use a higher number...

@John O. I really appreciate you making an account just to help me out! I'll send you a PM.

I am a fairly new investor based in San Diego. Currently looking for my second buy&hold cash flowing multi-family property. I'm realistic about cap-rates in Southern California, so I don't expect anything spectacular.

On to the actual property. I'm looking at a duplex located in Mt. Hope area, just south of Market St. and West of the I-15. If you are not familiar with the area, it's considered a pretty run-down, bad neighborhood in San Diego. High in crime and reported gang activity.

The property is a turn-key flip, so it's in tip-top condition, practically looking brand new. I've done my best estimating the rents and I would be getting around $300 cash flow on a home value just under $500k. I understand that the cash flow is not spectacular, but after looking for 4+ months, this doesn't look so bad for Metro San Diego area (I also have limited cash reserves, so I can't put down a 50%+ down payment to make some of the better properties cash flow).

My main question is whether it's worth buying a really nice property in a bad neighborhood as a long-term investment. I am concerned with the quality of tenants that I may be dealing with and with rent/price appreciation (I don't think this neighborhood will turn around any time soon). I am leaning against this investment, but want to know what you think, especially if you are a local San Diego investor. Is it best to stay away from these neighborhoods, no matter how nice the property is? Does any buy&hold investors even bother with South East San Diego?

Thanks!

@Mehran K. thanks for the warm welcome!

Thanks @Mike Kimani!

Thanks for the welcome and the links @Brandon Turner! I've actually read your blog Real Estate in Your Twenties a while back when you still updated it! But I see you are doing great over here, so I'm glad it worked out.

Thanks for the welcome and the links @Ned Carey!

Hi Guys & Gals,

I'm Anton and I'm excited to have recently joined the BiggerPockets community! I've sort of been all over the world - grew up in Moscow, Russia, moved to San Diego when I was 15, served in the US Navy in Japan for 6 years and now am back to San Diego.

I currently run an online business from home and have free time that I want to dedicate to learning more about real estate and expanding my investments. I purchased my first property in 2009 (a 3 bedroom town home), but a friend of mine did 95% of the legwork, while I provided the finances, so I didn't learn much about buying property then.

I am most interested in the buy & hold (or buy, fix & hold) strategy, focused on SFRs and small multi-family. Everybody tells me that San Diego is a terrible place to invest right now, but I'm determined and would rather first look for investments here than somewhere else.

I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you (and especially those from San Diego!), learning and being an active member of thus community. I would say that I'm actively looking for a local mentor, but I know that such requests are often viewed with well-deserved skepticism, so I plan to first network as much as possible and prove myself.

I'm going to attend the SDCIA and FIBI meetings next month, so maybe I'll see some of you there!