I'm finding that renters have more rights than landlords.Here's my scenario: Beautiful house, bad houses around me but neighborhood is climbing up the ladder for the better.

The main problem that all of these Manhattan style high rise condos have is that the developers appear to be under funded and unestimated the pent up demand from one to two years ago.They marketed their condos at say $500 per sf only to find out that in reality their actual costs to build were in the $800 to $900 per sf range.So they back out of most of the projects.

Even I think I'm nuts, but the lot adjoins a property I already own and in it's current condition the vacant, vandalized, dilapidated house needing rehab is affecting not only my property value but the neighborhood.

Certainly, that might be possible for one bad house in a neighborhood of nice ones.

I have seen similar properties for about $100K less but the amount of repair required and the neighborhoods they are in make them prohibitive.Mark

Here are the keys to using a birddog: figure out what kind of real estate you want and be specific (ex: 4-plexes in worker class neighborhoods and no association fee).

Having said that, the swimming pool issue is a life safety issue, and the city, county or state should jump on that if you contact the right office, especially when you mention serious concerns about the neighborhood children.

[b]Agents provide two big buckets of info: 1) "neighborhood knowledge" and 2) navigation of the legal paperwork and process.

For this neighborhood, the rent is near the top.

Same style house on same street sold for $120,000 3 month ago.