Anyway I have about $135k available on my heloc. sale price on the duplex is $279,000, so 20% is about $56k. the house is perfectly livable as-is, but at $60/sqft and properties on the block selling for $140/sqft i think there is room for some forced appreciation. the building is currently a three-floor duplex townhouse, one unit is the ground floor and unit two is the top two floors. all floors are basically the same floor plan. the second floor has a kitchen/laundry stacked above the first floor kitchen/laundry. on the third floor, the room is in the same place and empty, but utilities (water gas electric) are already run and in place for adding a third kitchen/laundry, so conversion to triplex would be simple as installing cabinets and appliances and building an exterior staircase up to the second floor rear deck. the three 2bed/1bath units would rent for $1000-$1200 a month each, conservatively. we would have to find somewhere else to live for that to happen, but that is our 1-3 year goal anyway. would it be better to make the bank loan smaller with a bigger down payment from the HELOC?

It can take a while to find a good deal, depending on your market you may need to be searching by zip code or even neighborhood or particular blocks.

Are you driving every block in your zip code and noting changes on blocks, smaller homes, value add opportunities?

Also, your stay does not have to be one block of time.

While it's easier to get a good deal (relative to market) on "a" house in the winter (flexible criteria on what the property looks like, etc), it's a lot harder to get "the" house (open floor plan, double oven, 2 blocks from the subway, bla bla bla).

The best advice that I can give is to time block.

1) I block the crawl door from shutting whenever I go under a house and 2) I always ask if anyone is home before entering a crawl. 

It appears that this block is an island or nicer houses in the middle of a not so great neighborhood.

@jake It was located on 2100 block of e Albert and no we never got it locked down.

In our experience, Indianapolis is more street-by-street - so you are correct when you say you can go one block in another direction and get the opposite appearance/comps in the value of the homes.