All Forum Posts by: Gordon Starr

I hate this term dead equity. You can pull major cash out so it isn't dead. Also, where else can you keep your reserves where you get those kind of returns? You might suppose (incorrectly) the effective return is only the current interest rate you can get. It would be hard to find an investment that pays more surely and steadily and with that kind of return.

Hate to bring up a painful subject, but who is going to pay an that over-leverage mortgage when YOU are dead? Won't the estate be insolvent?

Sound like you are positioned for major success @Christopher Toth ! The biggest thing to overcome is people's perception that the area is rough and/or blighted. It is right next to some areas that are D+ and you don't want people grouping Hulman in there (like I just did). Coming in on Ghettysburg ave is going to be a bit creepy for instance.  Make sure your photos show a really nice place that highlight the original mid century modern all polished up! Finding a really nice house to rent is hard at any price and what you have will command a premium price.

When I started buying sherrif's and treasurer's sales, I was taking risks and like "what, me worry?". I'd just buy and find out later how good the title was. The foreclosure wipes out everything except a federal tax lein and that doesn't even matter much if there is one. What I found out is that Detroit (wayne county treasurer) ALL the titles were a quitclaim that you couldn't sell for anything unless you sued the property for quiet title action. In Dayton, OH all the titles are gauranteed for a month or so, if you can't get title insurance they will give you your money back. Wow, what a difference! I gave up on Detroit all together. 

The better parts of Dayton proper have been on an absolute tear price wise with average list prices roughly doubling over the last two years for the areas I own and watch closely in 45404 and 45405. I don't think you can count on appreciation, as @Christina Carey says, but it is also important to realize we have been appreciating. It can make it tough to get an appraisal to justify current list prices.

Looks like you ARE more like c/b there, the far more dilapidated Greenwich village area is south of hillcrest (still very nearby). Northern hills and neighboring fort mckinley are really coming on strong in the last few years so you could get some very strong price appreciation. So too, is old north dayton where this thread started. The riverside drive corridor.. North main corridor.. These places are seeing appreciation like 30% per year lately. The way they are tearing down nuisance houses, westbrook will be the next place to snap up.

You know it may be that, things are changing so fast these days in the downtown area and these 1950s areas don't take that much to bring back to vibrancy.  Places are snapping from D to b/c practically overnight in some spots. If so, then I say buy! I'll make a point of swinging through there and get back with a more informed opinion on that specific street. In and around Greenwich village last time through looked pretty forlorn. 

I have not been on that specific block and if it is a nice one, it helps a lot with renting. That area has a lot of vacancies and a lot of tear downs are still needed. They are getting to them, though. The 1950s brick homes are about the best built and lowest maintenance. Also extremely popular with today's renters are the 1960s and 1920s. I would give the overall hulman area a D+.

750 is the total cost to purchase, last I heard, that includes foreclosed but uninsured title. Depends on your luck, but most of these places would need significant sweat to fetch 15 or 20k. 

Dayton's city proper program is Lot Links, they dropped the price to 750 up front, then wait for the foreclosure process which can take two years. I bought two of these awhile back and turned them into performing sfr rentals at around 35k plus quite a bit of sweat total invested for a rent of 1550 per month.

They didn't all work out, but some worked out great. The land bank is a county program which costs a bit more but currently has some fresher housing stock. The qualifications required by land bank are more onerous than the cost of the buildings. Lot Links would probably be your only option.

Any dumbass can post up data from the past. It takes someone who knows something to interpret that data. It takes someone really smart and really well studied to see where the future is. I moved to Cleveland in the early 80s and the city went bankrupt. So many people were vacating Cleveland proper, especially the low lying areas. Since 2010, the declines are so low as to be immeasurable. With that many supposedly empty dwellings, you have no idea if the population declined that tiny amount because so many people are living between the cracks.

Unless some affordable housing starts getting built somewhere in the USA in the near future, I see a lot of people landing here, not because they want to, but because they have no other choice at their price point (zero).