One owner in town finally gave up fighting the city and sold a building they were breaking the rules with.

I'd recommend finding an agent who's familiar with the area and has RE investment experience so he/she can show you where the good deals are (AND where to avoid the bad ones)!

Just to offer you an opposing opinion - driving down the principle and refinancing is putting a lot of your hard earned cash, that could be used for productive assets, into a bad asset.

It is a very hard market to bust into because the older housing such bad shape and banks willNot lend.

Not to say it’s the bad choice, but it impacts your numbers and potential exit.

Used units have no warranty , in one month when it goes bad you will be buying a new one .  

Could have just been bad luck on that deal so I wouldn't go as far to say the whole area is bad, but my personal experience wasn't great. 

It's not the best area but it's also not too bad, and I know people who have happily lived in that area.

So I'm thinking about getting a hard money loan and picking up these higher-end properties and just farm out the fix work and skip the houses with really bad problems...but ones with normal problems I can probably get done.I did 35 flip but I'm 70 years old ...in good condition....and I wonder, do you think the bigger projects will work out.  

@Marie WitheliduaYou are getting into a conflict with irrational people with an obvious history of making very bad choices.