which to pick- plaza district/gatewood area or south of paseo area?

Paseo and Gatewood are both good for flips. I assume you're looking at fixing some of these homes up on the quick before you sell them?

anything south of wichita and north of dallas is full of potential. oh yeah stay away from tulsa...

I'd be real careful about those older homes. Lots of them have sewer pipes going bad, which are a beeotch to fix. When we looked over there, more often than not, the houses had foundation issues. You could easily loose your investment down there. I'd stick to slab construction, maybe in the MWC/Edmond/Moore areas.

Given the difficulty for nearly any borrower to secure financing and considering the pervasive view that real estate prices are destined to go to lower levels buying and flipping seems pretty dangerous.

Paseo. Everybody else has the same idea, though, so you've got to be quick on the draw. Jefferson Park is your other best bet to get something real cheap and fix it up. Every once in a while a screaming bank-owned deal will come through but you'd better be ready with the cash on day 1. Patience is key, I see but a few good deals a year.

Also, it isn't that hard to get financing right now.

I'd be real careful about those older homes. Lots of them have sewer pipes going bad, which are a beeotch to fix. When we looked over there, more often than not, the houses had foundation issues. You could easily loose your investment down there. I'd stick to slab construction, maybe in the MWC/Edmond/Moore areas.

Are you seriously suggesting building new in the burbs?

Are you seriously suggesting building new in the burbs?

I believe he was referring to slab constructed houses as opposed to conventional constructed houses. The only reason I can think of why he would say that is because if you have to jack up the foundation to repair it. A bad sewer line is no reason to not buy a house... That's nothing compared to a messed up foundation.

There are always reasons to not renovate a property, just as there are always reasons why you should. Older homes have some problems but you can run into huge problems just by turning a field into tract housing if you didn't do your research on soil types and drainage issues. When you own property it's always real hit-and-miss regardless of whether it's a 100 year old home on a tree-lined street or a 10 year old home that's conveniently completely devoid of character.

I'm not sure of the neighborhood name but the housing additions just west of Classen between 30th and 39th is prime for flipping. I bought my house just outside that area but when I was looking I noticed plenty of houses that, if I were a "handy-man" I would taken and fixed up.

Keep the flipping to California. Look what good it did their economy.

Keep the flipping to California. Look what good it did their economy.

Pretty sure he's talking about the investing dollars and sweat equity type of flipping, not the sit on it and hope someone pays more type of flipping. Theres always a need and a market for the former.

I'm not sure of the neighborhood name but the housing additions just west of Classen between 30th and 39th is prime for flipping. I bought my house just outside that area but when I was looking I noticed plenty of houses that, if I were a "handy-man" I would taken and fixed up.

Yes. I agree with you. I would even extend that to NW Expressway to include the area around 42 and Georgia, Blackwelder, and on east to Classen. There are so many homes with potential and they're being picked up and given new life. Like any of these older neighborhoods there are always "pockets" that aren't what you'd like, but they're becoming fewer as these homes get fixed up.

Thank you all for the replies. So many beautiful homes in the historical areas and so many that are being renovated for profit. I just have to be involved. The last thing I would do is buy in suburban areas. Make me sick. Anyway, fortunately I will most likely not need any loans to jump in so wish me luck!! If any other up and coming historical areas come to mind then please mention them. I think i will be concentrating in the gatewood area.:)

Keep the flipping to California. Look what good it did their economy.

Yes, we wouldn't want anyone pumping money into the countless dilapidated houses around here.

Yeah if you're talking about sweat equity flipping I'm all for it, not the make a quick buck quick flipping. Gatewood probably isn't your best bet for ROI, I'd go to a lower pricepoint like Plaza, TenPenn, or Paseo or the area west of Western near Crown Heights.

Thank you all for the replies. So many beautiful homes in the historical areas and so many that are being renovated for profit. I just have to be involved. The last thing I would do is buy in suburban areas. Make me sick. Anyway, fortunately I will most likely not need any loans to jump in so wish me luck!! If any other up and coming historical areas come to mind then please mention them. I think i will be concentrating in the gatewood area.:)

I'm going to send you a PM with some info that I think you'll appreciate if you're scouting the inner north side for neighborhoods to invest in. And of course, good luck!

I'm going to send you a PM with some info that I think you'll appreciate if you're scouting the inner north side for neighborhoods to invest in. And of course, good luck!

Thank you :)

Spartan, would you mind sending me the PM info too?

Is it like a little treasure map with an "X" where to invest?

It won't let me send you a PM, and since okclee also wanted to see (although he's probably already seen this, just a guess), I'll just post it here at risk of drawing irate criticism for sharing a graphic I made on my blog. This is a neighborhood health assessment that I compiled for the inner north side--drawing the idea from the planning department which has one of these themselves, but there's nowhere you can access it and the last time they did one was 2000 and a LOT has changed since then, especially in this part of town.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L3gtvb8usg4/TGI8lDkgfcI/AAAAAAAAAxg/gwC2MWCE04c/s1600/Untitled4.jpg

Here's a description of what each color code represents, but generally green is good and red is bad, with yellow meaning in between.

BEST OF THE BEST
These are your name-brand neighborhoods, most of which are on the National Register of Historic Places in their entirety. The lone exceptions on that are Linwood Place and Edgemere Heights. These neighborhoods, with the exception of Mesta Park, mostly feature large homes on large lots that dwarf those in the nearby neighborhoods. Mesta Park features large homes on much smaller lots (in comparison to those across Walker), giving it a very dense feel. It has strong building/lot proportionality. In no particular order:

Heritage Hills
Mesta Park
Edgemere Park
Crown Heights
Edgemere Heights
Putnam Heights
Linwood Place

GREAT NEIGHBORHOODS
These are your other neighborhoods that typically come highly recommended to anyone looking to move closer to downtown. Some of them just recently turned the corner (like the Paseo) thanks in part to a huge wave of investment right before the financial collapse, others have been gentrified for a while (like Shepherd) and just happen to have smaller, less grandiose homes than you'd find on 19th Street in Linwood Place. And just to rationalize one of them, there is no such "Helm Historic District"--it was considered part of the highly run-down Helm Farm neighborhood by the OCPD crime reports..I just need to do some more looking into it because this area feels like a very separate neighborhood, particularly where there's been a lot of well-organized preservation and restoration along NW 38th. In no particular order:

Jefferson Park
The Paseo
Helm Historic District
Gatewood
Plaza District
Shepherd
Cleveland
Crestwood
Miller
Milam Place

GOOD NEIGHBORHOODS
These are your neighborhoods that may be turning the corner still, but certainly are good neighborhoods, that are mostly tidy. Some, such as Douglas Park, are actually great neighborhoods that are just limited by the building stock being mostly smaller homes that will be difficult to fetch much more than $100,000, where I expect more homes to be valued at. And I think I might have underrated Denniston Park. Any trends you may notice with the names is totally unintentional. In no particular order:

Asian District
Uptown
Douglas Park
Woodland Park
Military Park
Venice Park
Denniston Park
Reed Park

NOT BAD NEIGBORHOODS
These hoods could do a lot of improving. I just didn't want to put them on my list of bad neighborhoods, mostly because they do have clusters of restored homes or newer homes. West Main Street actually has some huge potential, and is still an active business/industrial corridor, with well-maintained warehouses. In no particular order:

May-Penn
Memorial Heights
West Main Historic District

SOMEWHAT ROUGH HOODS
These are your neighborhoods that I'm not gonna cherry coat, they have a lot of work ahead of them. These neighborhoods are salvageable and have huge potential, they just have so much work to be done right now. And yes, I specifically put the OCU campus on a list of rough hoods, because their campus is terrible. They have some beautiful buildings, they have zero landscaping, and they clearly do not understand the concept of what a campus is. I have seen high school campuses that feel more college campus-like. They need to work on creating a campus feel or they will forever stay on my list of rough hoods. Of course, it doesn't help that the surrounding Epworth neighborhood is also very rough. Central Park is also a neighborhood that needs to be city-action targeted..apparently the city doesn't even maintain its own medians in Shartel. In no particular order:

Central Park
Epworth
OCU campus
Putnam Heights West
Sequoyah
Las Vegas
Lyons Park

TEAR-DOWN DISTRICTS
I think that these are the neighborhoods that represent the best candidates for new infill housing. They need the SoSA treatment. The main thing separating these neighborhoods from the "somewhat rough hoods" is that the building stock is going to limit its ability to improve much. It is largely somewhat disposable, and you all know what a brickhugger I tend to be. Classen-Ten-Penn is alright around most of its boundaries (Western, Penn, 16th), but the further south you go, the rougher it is--that's where the Flaming Lips reside. In the Aurora neighborhood there have already been a number of tear-downs, and I think I saw two new contemporary residences on a short drive through. If preservation everywhere else is enforced, it may actually be feasible to reposition these neighborhoods as the appropriate catchment areas for wide-scale redevelopment through tear-downs, and new infill housing. In this sense it is in the best interest of Classen-Ten-Penn to not allow any new construction in neighborhoods not named Classen-Ten-Penn, if that logic makes sense. Every neighborhood in this part of town has the potential to serve a purpose, and this is by far the best outlook for these neighborhoods. Hopefully someday they may resemble the Rice Military area of Houston. In no particular order:

Helm Farm
Classen-Ten-Penn
Youngs-Englewood
Aurora

DANGEROUS HOODS
Don't be fooled by Westlawn Gardens' pretty name. I wouldn't even recommend driving through these areas. Metro Park actually does have some potential, great building stock, maybe a small number of houses that look like they have been restored, others that have great potential, maybe one or two new infill houses. It's not as dangerous as the others but I'm sure that after dark it's still pretty bad. I imagine that the 10th Street improvements will help out over the longterm. The others are just industrial blight areas for the most part with dilapidated shacks mixed in for good measure. These areas will not even be a candidate for redevelopment because the city intends to relocate homeless services to this area. The new "WestTown" homeless shelter is currently u/c on Virginia, in Rock Island.

Metro Park
Rock Island
Westlawn Gardens

____________
On a side note, if you're interested in a specific neighborhood for flips, try the Central Park area. I like how it is sort of the last ungentrified piece of a "central corridor" of streetcar neighborhoods arranged linearly heading straight north out of downtown.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_L3gtvb8usg4/TGJKq0796WI/AAAAAAAAAxw/qJuf4v5cays/s1600/Untitled5a.jpg

There you go posting your spam again Spartan.

And your right I have already seen this on your blog, great work too. http://downtownontherange.blogspot.com/

Interesting I keep a similar neighborhood map in my office with a color coding scheme as well, I've had it for a few years now.

Interesting I keep a similar neighborhood map in my office with a color coding scheme as well, I've had it for a few years now.

Please do share, I'd be very interested in someone else's color coding of the different neighborhoods. I think I was a little easy on a lot of them, but I'm told I tend to be a negative person so I wanted there to be a "curve" lol.

Apparently I live right in the heart of a light-green "good neighborhood" and I'll take that as a compliment as I think my neighborhood is one of those that got some of your "curve" points. :)

That's an excellent general assessment, Spartan. Good job. I've been told by a real estate agent that one reason the Linwood neighborhood is still so nicely kept up, (especially 19th on the south, Drexel on the west, 23rd on the north and Grand on the west) is that it has one the highest owner-occupied home percentages of our urban neighborhoods. Can somebody verify that?