I know that it has been mentioned many times here by several people that you should not buy in a war zone, but I just had to post this. As if you needed yet another reason not to buy in a war zone, here is another one:

On Friday night I went to a very nice wedding reception. One of my best friends from college was there and it was fun to catch up. He no longer lives in town so I only see him maybe 2-3 times per yr. I know that he invests in RE and also know that he owns a property in an area here that is known to be very bad. The last time I spoke to him it was vacant and had been for some time.

On Saturday night I asked him again, "so do you still have that house in the war zone?" and I get this as an answer, "well sort of, sort of not." It turns out that the city decided to tear it down Obviously I asked more questions and it still seems pretty shocking that they would do this, but apparently they did. He did say that it looks real nice now. He even said "They smoothed it over and planted grass seed and everything." lol

The house was boarded up and it had been that way for quite some time because he had fixed it up 3 times and finally decided he was tired of a) no tenants, b.) no buyers, c) people breaking windows, d) people stealing the appliances/copper pipes, e) finding evidence of squatters etc etc. I guess one time about 2 yrs ago he had someone all lined up to buy and at the final inspection there was a drive by shooting right down the street as the prospective buyer was on the inspection. I guess they were not real fond of that and the deal fell through.

I'm sure there are more mistakes in this one than what I can think of, but here are some of the obvious ones:
1) Don't buy in a war zone.
2) Don't be an out of town buyer.
3) Don't use your own money for downpayment etc. (If he would have done a CA or an SLO none of this would be his problem)

Alan

Negative,
Negative,
Piss,
Poohey,
Spit, spit.


Seriously, I agree however..........

If you're smart (Which you are) you can "flip" properties in war zones without ever even seeing them! Just find the people that are willing to deal with the issues in your post and then locate and negotiate properties on "TERMS". Then you can flip them with your buyer putting down less money than buying them cash. Use a vehicle such as a lease option or land contract. And if you're realllllllly smart, you can stay in the middle or collect on the note that you have created. You'll make a fortune and never have to take a bullet for it.
Just my two cents,
Adam

Did my war zone deal once, a long time ago. It was a foreclosure from CitiBank and, early in my career as it was, I thought it was a steal. Despite all the common sense warnings and good advice not to go ahead with it, I did. A week after we replaced an entire heating system, we returned to the vacant premises to find all our beautiful, shiny copper pipes gone!
To make a long, boring story, a little less long and boring, I sold the house to a smarter investor than I. How do I know he was smarter? He paid $25K less! Ouch! Life lesson.