This thread has turned irrational. Out of State Investors are not the reason houses are being abandoned in Cleveland.
Most of the abandoned houses in Cleveland are in neighborhoods where the majority of the houses are not financeable by banks due to low value and/or terrible condition. Regular Cleveland buyers don't want to purchase these houses, and can't get financing for them even if they did, and local investors know better. So in walks the OOSI who sees a house for the price of a used car that rents for $750. He or she rolls the dice and craps out. Bad move. Bad situation. But would the property sitting vacant earlier and never being fixed up before it was abandoned be a better situation?
To suggest or infer that if OOSI didn't come in and buy these properties that they would somehow majestically be better taken care of and the quality of the blighted neighborhoods would improve is just silly.
If OOSI were faced with more regulation, they would eventually go away. With less investors interested in the area, do you actually think there would be less blight? With all of these CA and NY investors flooding the area and all of the local investors actively scarfing up properties, why are there still so many abandoned houses? Because there are too many investors? Without OSSI, would Cleveland investors really pick up all the slack? The numbers say, "no".
Blaming blight on people who invest in your community (successfully or not) is ridiculous and the last thing Cleveland needs is more regulation.
