Seems promising for you guys in OHIO or the area

http://www.loopnet.com/xNet/MainSite...howAudit=False

This is actually real close to where I live. What makes you think it's promising? Just the fact that it's run down and it's an absolute auction and will probably sell cheap?

Yup. What else is there?

Isn't Columbus a college town? When you can find property for a good price in a college town, my advice is to buy it.

I used to live in Columbus fairly close to that place. It's definitely not a great area and pretty run down, and not somewhere that college students are going to live. No idea how that affects the value, but you are not going to rent that to a college student. Recent grads aren't going to live anywhere near that either.

Not sure how that affects value, but I would treat at as a regular rundown crappy area, the college town part wouldn't really add any value as far as I know.

Yeah thats a pretty awful part of town, but then again Spex has made a killing with properties like these so I would listen if you have some cash.

The benefit of it being near OSU is next to nil, there are plenty of rundown slum areas close to campus if you are a student and want somewhere cheap to live.

I have no idea what the value of a place like this would be or why spex thinks its a deal, just wanted to make sure he knew that the "college town" part of the deal is probably not as great as he might think if he just looked at a map and saw the properties location and OSU's location. It could be a steal or could be a nightmare, I have no idea.

More info from spex would be appreciated on why he thinks its a deal, etc...

i would guess spex isnt concerned about the place renting to students. i would imagine the overall rental markets in college towns are more stable and less susceptible to outside forces than mid sized cities without a major university presence.

Spex would Section 8 them all , and he'd probably make a lot of money by doing so.

The fact that these are bank owned being sold absolute indicates that these properties are not prime properties to buy. If you can get these things cheap and rent them out, that makes it a good deal. If they're in a low income area, great, rent them to Section 8 tenants. If they're close to campus, great, rent them to students. I don't care who you rent them to. Who you rent them to matters for nothing. Its the amount you can rent them for and the price you pay that makes a deal. Since you guys are in the area, this information would be pretty easy to find out.

Hopefully you can get some decent property for under market and make yourself some monthly income and some additional wealth.

Is the reason you mentioned "college town" as a reason to lean towards buying it? Just curious to your line of thinking more than anything. I don't live in the area any more, so I am not personally interested in this property, just your line of thinking.

Clearly the value of the property, the price you can get it for, and the income of renting them should be the major factor.

This property looks like Section 8 material. I would definitely inspect it, it sounds like there is a lot of work that needs to be done because you have vacant property that has been broken into. Hell, you might even have some bums who are living in there right now.

Well, to be honest, my experience with college towns is pretty limited. But in my limited experience college towns tend to show higher/more stable appreciation. The nice thing about a package of duplexes is that you don't have to use income analysis to sell them off later on. That is to your benefit if you can use income analysis to buy them. Income analysis will normally appraise a property lower - depending, of course, on the investment criteria typical to your market.


Yeah, that is true. On the other hand, the market is likely to way overvalue the effort an expense of getting these things up and rolling again.

All in all, this was just something I came accross and thought I'd stick it here. If this package were in my area, I'd almost definitely bid on it given the situation. So it piqued my interest and I thought of you guys here.

Definitely worth the Bart Simpson bid of $1 at least Of course, when the one of the 13 that they decide to show a picture of has the door busted in, the upstairs window out... makes you wonder whats in the other ones.

There could definitely be potential for someone willing to put the work into it.

If I had cash or the foggiest idea what I was doing I'd be all over it.

spex,

Could you guess even a ballpark estimate on what a payment would look like?

Not without knowing how much the winning bid is.

Being a current OSU student your not going to find any OSU students living out there. 9-19th is more the range for off campus housing and I am not actually even sure where Cleveland is.

I wish someone would have made an effort at this. Everyone on this forum masturbates to spex's real estate skills and everyone on the forum is suddenly fascinated with real estate and wants to get into it. Your man spex here provides you with an opportunity and not one person blinks twice. If you're worried that you are not knowledgable enough to pursue this and don't know how to analyze it properly, you're king spex is sitting over there waiting to help you. Judging by how much he has already contributed to the forum, I'm quite sure he would assist you with the analysis. Anyways this is more a knock on you guys rather than promoting spex's internet genitals. I didn't even mean to read this thread I was searching for a different one cya guys later!

At the very least, in a beginner's shoes I'd have gone and looked at the properties and attended the auction. I'd have tried my best to pencil out the numbers to see what makes sense. Ah well.

I didn't see this thread originally. How did you find this auction? I'll drive by these properties and see what is happening and give everyone an update.

You guys really view Columbus as a college town?

I mean, Athens is a college town. Columbus is an actual well rounded city IMO.

Columbus has a huge part of its identity in tOSU. I also consider Austin, TX to be a college town, even though it has a lot of other things. It is a lot different than a place like Athens that's entire identity is in the university that is there.

Don't get me wrong, when I think C-bus or Austin, their major universities are the first thing that pops in my brain--but from a RE perspective b/c their economies are much more diverse than an Athens, I think there would be a distinction right?

It's weird because you could easily live in both cities without being affected by the university (besides football), because they both spread far from campus. That said the main influence is that most of the people who went to the university still live there for many years, so they are obviously going to stay involved. They are really similar towns though obviously, as I've lived in both.

There's definitely a huge distinction from a college-dependant city and a college town. So from a RE perspective, yeah, its a huge difference between say Columbus and Athens. But the one nice thing about college "cities", like Austin and Columbus is there is a steady supply of educated people who have money to spend on housing. Quite a lot of people stay in those cities after they graduate, very often rent, and keep things more stable than other areas. If you aren't talking about RE in typical student housing areas, you aren't going to be directly affected, but there are certainly indirect factors here.

This example is something that confused me, because no college student or college graduate would ever live anywhere near that place. So that was one of my questions to spex about why having tOSU "nearby" increased this places value vs. a place that had no university in a very similar environment. I was wondering if he just didn't know the area well or saw something I wasn't thinking about.

Gotcha, that makes some sense.

How important do you guys think it is that this is a 'college town' vs a 'city w a college'? From an investing perspective, what makes this important? I'm not looking for the 'right' answer (even though I have some opinions on this matter). I'm just curious as to how you guys are thinking about this concept.