Could A Total Neighborhood Rehab Like This Work?
This may be a totally crazy business idea, but I was wondering if any one has ever heard of anything like this being done. Let’s say that you found a wonderful community that is about 25 years old and about 50% of the houses are in need of some type of rehab. This is a large private gated community and the houses range from $200K to well over a million. The values of the homes are high but the residents who are selling houses that have been kept up to date are having a hard time getting a good price because of the number of houses that need to be updated. This is a desirable area and many of the residents are older and many of the buyers looking now in this area are looking for a home that needs no work.
The residents have tried to find ways to bring up property values and are upset that they can get nowhere near the appraised values for their homes. There is lots of potential here and I want to do something, but it’s going to take more than fixing up a handful of houses to make a difference. Has anyone ever had experience or heard of someone trying to revive an area like this by allowing current residents to invest in a company that would rehab houses and help revitalize the neighborhood? I don’t have the cash to do many at a time, but would love to use others money to do this. There is a HOA in place and they are trying to bring things up to date also.
Is this just a totally crazy idea or could it be done?
There is a very cute little town that I know in a similar situation. The area around it is growing like crazy and house values are skyrocketing...but this little town, which is nicely situated near the growing town has a number of houses which are falling apart, and a number of really nice houses. I had grandious ideas of trying to start buying up house after house and fixing them up...keeping them...renting them out....and basically trying to buy the town....keep it up and improve on the image overall....pretty crazy right?? It sounded good to me...just a matter of how to get started with it. Of course, I was thinking of doing it in a way where all of the houses become mine...where you aparently want to just try to fix them up.
keqwow, Sounds like our ideas are very similar. This area is not good for renting so rehabing and selling would be my best option. I guess it would take someone with a lot of cash and not someone like me who is just starting.
Yes, I think it would take someone with lots of money. I was looking at a duplex in that town I spoke of and put an offer in on it....it would have been my first property. The place needed quite a bit of work...but unfortunately I totally backed out part way through the structural inspection due to even more problems coming to light. That was going to be the "1st of many..." properties in that town. I still like the idea though, and I may still try to purchase properties in this little town over the years....just a good location and a cute little town that I think has a lot of potential. In the meantime I moved on to another duplex a few towns over....this will be my first property....