All Forum Posts by: Paulette Hewitt

@Paulette Hewitt
The Cleveland market is a great place for cashflow. I recommend checking out Old Brooklyn, West Blvd, Cudell, and Clark Fulton. All Solid C+/C- locations on the West side of Cleveland with no POS.

Check some crime stats to be sure but generally you can do a quick zillow search and based on the property prices it will start to steer you away from certain neighborhoods.  Most areas are fine to do a quick drive through in the morning.  I would suggest finding a Cleveland based agent that can meet you and go through some properties with you.  In this market there is a lot that has to be learned hands on.  I think that all of my clients that have done walk throughs of the different neighborhoods always felt that it was very beneficial and helped guide their final investment decisions.  

In terms of my investing strategy I always recommend anything that ends in "Heights", these are suburbs and most of them are decent if you can find something priced well in those areas.

I just bought a property out there, and I have NEVER been there, or saw the property. I bought it from a great TK group out there that did the renovation, and handles the PM in house. I just ran the numbers, got inspections appraisals etc. and tenant has been placed and cashflowing at about 12% year 1. I love that it is passive, I don't like my LTR to be active, I do also buy STR's that are active and keep me busy, the last thing that I want to be is a landlord for at LTR. Feel free to Dm me if you need anything else.

Hi Paulette, so I've researched both Cleveland and Columbus and I have to say I definitely prefer Columbus Ohio and as someone who works with a lot of out of state investors - there's so many catalysts for why you should invest here. Specifically, there's job growth (Intel, Honda, Amazon, Nationwide, etc) and the population is growing (unlike Cleveland or Cincy). I really see Columbus Ohio as an extremely safe bet for the next 10-20 years. Plus, there's still so many positive cash flowing and 1% deals here in Columbus Ohio. Just a few weeks ago, I helped a client close on a deal getting them 20% cash on cash return. As a local investor and agent here in Columbus, let me know if you have any questions or want to connect! 

 @Paulette Hewitt

I don’t have any zip codes for you, but some friendly words of advice: C neighborhoods are fine, but you would be doing yourself a serious misstep to go below that.

Think of “D” (and below)  as standing for Drugs and Dangerous, and Dilapidated.  Well over 1/2 my properties are C class properties.  I have owned one D property out of the 45 units I have purchased in 5 years.  It had constant issues… you typically find a lower class of tenants in these neighborhoods…. whether they are yours or not.  We’ve had AC units stolen, the tenants themselves stealing the appliances as they moved out; the tenants not paying for their own water and hooking up to someone else’s water with a garden hose to ‘reverse power’ their plumbing… not realizing that with their water meter removed the water was then flooding the front of their property.  Police calls, fights, arguments, code enforcement calls, plus a poor history of paying on time, increased evictions and lack of care for the property in general.

For your own sanity, I encourage you to add “Don’t” to the list of D words above.  

All the best!

Randy