You will need the full cooperation of the police department and eventually the residents as you work to rid the area of one of the main factors bringing it down: crime.

You need to factor this in to any deal you strike.

Have them purchase the property from you and retain partial ownership in exchange for cash flow, equity, etc.3. hard money - the numbers may not work, especially when you factor in interest rate, points and LTV, but there are investors in my market who do this.

A buy and hold investor will be looking for a certain return, which will depend on other factors.

So guess there is just a safety factor for me because I know what the tenant will be like since I have rented in these areas myself.Some of the worst nightmare stories I've heard form long term investors I know (that favor SFR's now) are from 4-plex's they owned in bad parts of San Bernardino CA on blocks with mostly apartments.

If you assign the contract, your buyer takes on this risk.I would never accept a deal where there is no requirement for clear title, unless I had already done a title search myself and ensured that any liens were factored into my analysis.

This may factor into being able to argue that you are trying to keep up with the trends in the market.Do you do any flipping?

Back end can technically go to 45%, I think, but only if excellent credit and compensating factors that will improve the ratio in the next 12 mths, for example.

That was my first thought as well, but then I realized that there is principal pay-down that needs to be factored in; I don't have a calculator handy, but I'm guessing it's somewhere between 4-5%.Still crazy cheap, though!

My question has to do with how much more you can realistically get for a house with "wow" factor.