Parts of East Bakersfield and Oildale are pretty rough. We do a lot of flips here and in some of these areas we have to have people stay in the properties until they're sold, as they'll get disassembled as fast as fast as we put them back together otherwise (this is an issue in Taft as well). These properties are also generally very old and many weren't of great quality in the first place. As an out of town owner who needs things to run on autopilot, if I were you I'd spend a little more and buy something of more modern construction in a better part of town. There's a big difference between nominal and actual returns, and that gap gets wider and wider the crappier the neighborhood gets. I do realize that many have made decent money at the very low end of the market, but that takes quite a strong stomach, and I believe also was a function of particular market conditions which aren't likely to exist again any time soon (IE these properties got absolutely crushed in the downturn of a decade ago and were picked up for a song. That isn't the situation now).
