Irvington is fairly well established as a neighborhood and the pricing reflects that. First, it is quite hard to find a house in need of rehab that is priced below market. Most sellers are aware of what rehabbed homes in Irvington go for and as such the sale price reflects that. Second, Irviington as a neighborhood is quite nice and as I said settled. As such the neighborhood itself does not have a ton of (quick) equity to be gained from a househack. By that, I mean the cost to buy a home in Irvington, and the cost to hack it (even if you are doing most of the work and are handy) and bring it up to Irvington standards is high such that there isn't very much in leftover equity to pocket. Now if you intended to stay there closer to 5-7 years then you can slowly build that equity, however, if you are looking more like 2-3 years and try to make a decent margin that's going to be hard to do. That's my two cents.
I think you may want to look at neighborhoods which aren't fully settled yet. Brandon Turner - the guy who runs this website and has written a good book on real estate investing - says that when he walks into a home that smells bad he thinks to himself "smells like money." It is quite hard, in my estimation, to find a lot of those types of homes in Irvington. You may have better luck in neighborhoods that are still "transitioning" such as Garfield Park, St. Clair Place, Mapleton-Fall Creek. In short, places that aren't Fountain Square, Fletcher Place, Broad Ripple or Old Northside, but will get there in 5 years.
Keep the questions coming, always happy to share what I know and self-educate from other passionate investors on this forum.
