All Forum Posts by: Rusty Scott

I'm gong to say no on manufactured housing and no on location. That isn't really a suburb of Indy, more a tiny rural town. You'll have a tiny pool to rent to and the home will depreciate in value as it ages. You are better off to look in Beech Grove. You'll have quality built homes and a large tenant pool. 

That area south of 46th right in there is still pretty rough, and the housing stock itself is less than desirable. Its possible long term you'll see improvement, but it's going to be a while. Rents are pretty low over there still.

That said, once everything between 46th and 52nd gets the SoBro bump, one would think that would hop over 46th to the south. There was a time when south of 52nd was all pretty bad, and now most stuff there is over $100k.

I'm also looking a lot in southern part of Butler Tarkington....city via the midtown TIF is pumping a lot of money in that area, the area is surrounded by the cities best cultural assets, and they have a strong neighborhood association.

Not a very good pocket there. Further west or east is ok, that's the roughest area of the near east side.

I'll 2nd what Matthew said. Please look at the sold comps closely....with clients I've worked with from out of state, many of the turnkey offerings they have shown me have been towards the very high end of area comps. 

That leaves you requiring that everything go perfect with your management company, or you could quickly find yourself way underwater in a difficult neighborhood. 

Tread carefully and do a lot of DD.

I believe in Indiana you do not need to go through foreclosure for a defaulted land contract. After 30 days the seller could have filed for forfeiture and likely had this long ago resolved.

 I'd say that's a bit of an over reaction....if that scares you off, then you'll be scared away from most major metro areas.

Indy is roughly 400 sq miles. Almost all the violent crime occurs in about 8 sq miles of the city. You avoid the handful of areas that make up that, and you'll be just fine

 PM sent Tyler

 Ryan, I agree....I've never had a vacancy issue in Indy in 10 years! But we avoid winters if possible and price to market. I've found you can really find long term tenants in all areas of town. I have very few single year tenants.

Regarding rental demand in suburbs....it's very strong. For one thing, the inventory of homes to rent in the suburbs is quite a bit lower. Much more owner occupied than the inner city....this is a very general statement, and there are exceptions both ways.

Regarding the comments on gentrification in Indy....yes it has and continues to occur....but understand that it is a process thats measured in decades, not years. Fountain Square was a popular neighborhood in investing circles back in 2003/4 when I first started...the folks who were buying back then have now done well, but they had to slog through a lot of years. The Cultural Trail has been a major bump for the area, commercially. Fall creek place, for example, was a major public/private partnership that took two decades to play out. 

The area being discussed here by Douglas is not where I'd go if I wanted to do high risk investing. I'd look at midtownindy.org , NEARIndy.org, and other such groups, and see where funding and govt backing is being focused. 

Finally, rent ratios...you can get close to 1.5% in decent and stable neighborhoods if you are really hunting. Much more typical is about 1.3%, which is not too hard to find.