All Forum Posts by: Gloria N Gear

I have had 3 properties broken into while vacant - AC unit and appliances stolen -- all in Indianapolis, 2 B neighborhoods and a C neighborhood.  I personally would not take the risk. If you did have a fire, complete loss because you can bet that the insurance company would fight it because you did not have the "right" coverage.  My agent will just bump it up for the month and then right back down when it has a tenant in it and even pro-rate by the day.

We are already scheduled to connect, but I would say look where there are plenty of jobs and increasing population.  I am based in Indianapolis and that is my favorite because of the economic diversity.  But I have lived in Indiana most of my life.  Stay away from the little towns that are based on one manufacturing plant, when that goes under, the whole economy goes under.  Terre Haute, Bloomington, and Lafayette are the university towns that do well.  Northwest corner has spill over from Chicago.  Ft Wayne also has some good city developers that are doing some very good things as well.

Hi Paula, I have a friend that invests exclusively in Terre Haute and she has been trying to get me to start over there.  She says that the price point is low, but rent prices are good and the tenants are great.  It is more of a small town feel with rural type people that are hard workers and take care of their properties.  It is also a college town so you could get students and I have another friend that does well with mid-term rentals for traveling nurses there.

I would suggest contacting investor friendly realtors in a few of the cities that you are interested in. They are going to give you insight on what the best buy box strategy is for their city. I do like it when new investors come to me with a general idea of their buy box, but sometimes if it is too detailed, it doesn't realistically work for my city (Indianapolis). So I would narrow down your strategy, SFR/MFR, LTR-MTR-STR, and a general price point, then start looking for realtors here on BP in those cities. A good investor realtor should be able to give you good guidance.

I can make recommendations for Indianapolis IN --- the best thing I can say about Indy is the diverse, growing economy.  It is not focused on just one industry, but several strong stable corporations.  Lilly Corporation, Rolls-Royce, Fed-Ex (national hub) to name a few.  Because of our location and how much space we have, and the fact that you can ship any where in the States in under 3 days, it has become a center for distribution centers - they are building them for miles around here.  Very stable job market.  

There are several areas of Indy that hit the $150K price point, can have value add and are in C neighborhoods that are good rental areas.

If you are in Chicago, why are you looking so far away?  I used to live in Illinois - taxes are high, but I know plenty of investors in Champaign, Peoria, and Rockford.  You can go right across the border for Wisconsin or Indiana.  The Northwest corner of Indiana is very popular with Chicago investors. I now live in Indianapolis, investor here and have built a business around helping OOS investors.  I have a substantial network of contractors, property managers, lenders, etc.  Indianapolis has a stable but growing economy with plenty of transitional areas and low price points which make it attractive.  You asked about other cities in Indiana, I would recommend Ft Wayne, Lafayette (Purdue), Bloomington (IU), Terre Haute.  Contact me for more info.

I am actually in state, but I help out of state investors with this.  I do have a list of contractors, but sometimes the investors bring the contractor to the transaction.  When we are in the inpsection period, I meet up with the contractor at the property to come up with a SOW.  (We also do videos for our clients).  Then the contractor and the client work out the details over the phone.  Some of my clients have an extra person that acts as a "project manager" that goes to the site periodically throughout the project and takes pictures or videos of the progress.  (I do not currently offer that service but hope to be able to at some point).

Hi Michael, I am an investor and run a business for OOS investors in the Indy area, I would love to interview for position as well

I would love to have a conversation.  I will PM you my details.

I was born and raised in Northern Indiana and now live and do investing in Indianapolis.  (I also help OOS investors for this market too).   I was just talking to another investor this week who just moved here from up there.  We were discussing how downtown South Bend has really declined in the last few years, but near Notre Dame and Granger are good areas (I would defer to Jeremy for that though)  I have family that lives in Elkhart, which is good for the numbers but they are very dependent on the RV industry.  Ft Wayne has seen a lot of improvements over the last several years.  Indianapolis is the largest city, it has a very stable economy, plenty of job growth, and many neighborhoods in every price point ready for rentals.  Be happy to have a conversation to discuss further.