very nice house boarder line neighborhood, boarder line house nice area

[Falloutboy]

So in a dilemma. Been house shopping for about a month or two in the Kalamazoo area. Mainly was lookin for a countryish house. This weekend I happened across a program kzoo is doing they torr done 50+ homes in a niehborhood that was heading south. And built some parks new public buildings along with dozens on these beautiful new houses. Houses that are easily 300k in a nice neighborhood (high end home granite countertops stainless steel appliances, recall hardwood floors, pella windows... etc) there selling them for 100k with 20k given to you from the city that is forgivable after 5 or 10 years ( not sure which yet) so I'm into the house for 80.

My wife is the country girl but on board which fully surprised me.

Just not sure. Would you guys live in a rough neighborhood, not ghetto but typical city neighborhood predominantly minority which I'm not( not racist or thinking this is a bad things but just giving demographics)

 

[Falloutboy]

Also with me starting a family soon another upside/downside is the schools. They have kzoo promice (free tuition to any Michigan uni of you attended k
-12). Down side is its currently not a great school system

 

[PottedMeat]

umich will always be good, how full is the area of takers like you?

borderline
borderline
borderline
borderline
borderline
borderline

:biggrin:

 

[Slick5150]

Actually, the Kalamazoo school district is one of the most rapidly improving districts anywhere due to the Promise. It's an outstanding program that's yielding some amazing results. The New York Times just did an article about it. So it'd make a lot of sense to live in Kalamazoo vs just outside of it for that reason alone.

 

[Falloutboy]

Here is one of the houses (one we are looking is still being built)
http://kalamazoo.michiganhomeownership.org/property/1002-n-rose

And nice to hear about the districts improvements. That was my gut is that 5 6 years from now when I'm sending junior to school it would be a non issue and I'll be able to send my kid to umich something I didn't because I didn't want the student loan debt.

BTW I'm typing this all on my phone lol. Not the easiest to proofread spelling Nazi's

 

[Slick5150]

Wow. That looks REALLY nice and a steal at the price you're talking about.

 

[Falloutboy]

Exactly its a mighty tempting carrot. Gets me into a home 40k under budget and I prolly have 2-3 times the house than what I played for it. If what the city does works. That's a 200k plus home in 10 years at least if not more.

 

[PokerGuy]

This should not be a difficult decision.... borderline house in a nice neighborhood every day of the week. I wouldn't even consider the nice house in the borderline neighborhood. The nice-ness of the house means absolutely nothing when you live in an area where you don't feel as safe, where people don't care about their property as much, where there is more crime, where the property values are likely not to go up as much (if at all). No way.

Where are you more likely to have loud music, trash thrown around, cars getting broken into, neighbors yelling / fighting, dogs barking all day etc, in a lousy area or a good one? And don't forget, over time neighborhoods tend to go downhill, so a "borderline" area now will get a lot worse. There's a reason that neighborhood became lousy, building a few nice houses in it won't fix that.

I'd happily downgrade my home a little to live in a better neighborhood, rather than get a nice house in a lousy one.

 

[PClark99]

This should not be a difficult decision.... borderline house in a nice neighborhood every day of the week. I wouldn't even consider the nice house in the borderline neighborhood. The nice-ness of the house means absolutely nothing when you live in an area where you don't feel as safe, where people don't care about their property as much, where there is more crime, where the property values are likely not to go up as much (if at all). No way.

Where are you more likely to have loud music, trash thrown around, cars getting broken into, neighbors yelling / fighting, dogs barking all day etc, in a lousy area or a good one? And don't forget, over time neighborhoods tend to go downhill, so a "borderline" area now will get a lot worse. There's a reason that neighborhood became lousy, building a few nice houses in it won't fix that.

I'd happily downgrade my home a little to live in a better neighborhood, rather than get a nice house in a lousy one.

I cast my vote with this guy. He makes a ton of sense.

 

[soulcougher73]

Wow that is a lot of awesome house for 80k. Assuming its not a really bad area you think will get run down by minorities id probably jump on it.

 

[ViviTheMage]

It depends, I don't know the area at all, but i'd stay away from the ghetto borderline houses, but city/high populated area that is normal crime rate, I would not mind at all.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Worse house better neighborhood is always a better choice. You can fix houses yourself, not neighbors.

 

[tfinch2]

Here is one of the houses (one we are looking is still being built)
http://kalamazoo.michiganhomeownership.org/property/1002-n-rose

And nice to hear about the districts improvements. That was my gut is that 5 6 years from now when I'm sending junior to school it would be a non issue and I'll be able to send my kid to umich something I didn't because I didn't want the student loan debt.

BTW I'm typing this all on my phone lol. Not the easiest to proofread spelling Nazi's

Just did a Google Street View of the address.

 

[Falloutboy]

Just did a Google Street View of the address.

Its outdated. Google street view is from before half the houses on the lock were bulldozed and a new park put in and 10 new homes just on that block

 

[Slick5150]

I live in an urban city in Michigan (not Kalamazoo) in a neighborhood that 10 years ago was probably not that different from the neighborhood you're looking at now. Now, it's a very desirable neighborhood in which property values are on the rise and young families are buying up houses as fast as they can.

I obviously have no idea if the same trend will hold true where that house is, but the reality is that more and more young buyers want to live in the city (not suburbs) and are becoming a driving force in helping to reestablish neighborhoods that were left for dead years ago.

 

[Falloutboy]

Phone is dumb double post.

 

[Exterous]

Hey - I'll be in Kalamazoo tomorrow!

Worse house better neighborhood is always a better choice. You can fix houses yourself, not neighbors.

And so much this. Your equity potential is typically much greater if you buy a borderline house in a better neighborhood.

 

[Karsten]

This should not be a difficult decision.... borderline house in a nice neighborhood every day of the week. I wouldn't even consider the nice house in the borderline neighborhood. The nice-ness of the house means absolutely nothing when you live in an area where you don't feel as safe, where people don't care about their property as much, where there is more crime, where the property values are likely not to go up as much (if at all). No way.

Where are you more likely to have loud music, trash thrown around, cars getting broken into, neighbors yelling / fighting, dogs barking all day etc, in a lousy area or a good one? And don't forget, over time neighborhoods tend to go downhill, so a "borderline" area now will get a lot worse. There's a reason that neighborhood became lousy, building a few nice houses in it won't fix that.

I'd happily downgrade my home a little to live in a better neighborhood, rather than get a nice house in a lousy one.

^What he said^

We where in a similar position 12 some years ago. New neighborhood, great value and nice houses. My Realtor, while not totally discouraging me advised me against it. Final straw was that we found a few issues with the house when looking close.
A few years later I would drive by the house we looked at ever now and then. Lawns not taken care of, houses that showed age before it's time and junk around. Not a place I'd see my little one run around.
We ended up finding a house for not much more in a well established neighborhood with good folks and generally people caring.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

^^above post is right. Its still a buyers market & will stay that way for a bit longer. My GF and I had a hard time finding the right house, I thought she'd kill me over not deciding on the small well landscaped Italian family home. I simply felt the one car driveway and tiny rooms would be irritating. I personally really wanted the half way remodeled foreclosure home in not a great neighborhood. Bottom line those are just two examples of homes that were not a good fit for both of us and missing them plus a few others was a good thing. We ultimately found a house that meets 90% of each of our needs in a far better than expected neighborhood than we expected. If you end up with a short sale home expect lots of documentatation on income/finsnces and many delays but it ultimately works out. PS DO NOT USE BSNK OF AMERICA, they are notorious for not processing stuff on time and you could easily miss your purchase window. We changed from BoA because of the delays, moving to Citizens Bank was a great move (she suggested it). Everything was completed on time but one small item that was resolved by a phone call to the bank processor & some Citizen's regional loan director breaking out his vpn access on a Sunday.

 

[BoomerD]

umich will always be good, how full is the area of takers like you?

borderline
borderline
borderline
borderline
borderline
borderline

:biggrin:

:thumbsup:

 

[lxskllr]

And don't forget, over time neighborhoods tend to go downhill, so a "borderline" area now will get a lot worse. There's a reason that neighborhood became lousy, building a few nice houses in it won't fix that.

While I generally agree with you, this isn't always the case. In urban areas especially, things can go high end if they're targeting the area for revitalization, and there's other reasons for people to want to go there. That's a pretty small caveat though, and i would bet doesn't apply to the OP, though I'm not familiar with the area.

 

[PokerGuy]

While I generally agree with you, this isn't always the case. In urban areas especially, things can go high end if they're targeting the area for revitalization, and there's other reasons for people to want to go there. That's a pretty small caveat though, and i would bet doesn't apply to the OP, though I'm not familiar with the area.

True, there are definitely times and places where the neighborhood can get a lot better when they revitalize the area and build it up nicely, especially when that happens close to a major urban area. I wouldn't bet on that happening though, it's rather the exception than the norm.

Personally, I think living in a nice area where you feel safe and you can fell OK about your kids being outside is a million times more important than how nice a house is, within reason of course.

 

[lxskllr]

Personally, I think living in a nice area where you feel safe and you can fell OK about your kids being outside is a million times more important than how nice a house is, within reason of course.

I agree. One place I lived in was a block away from a ghetto. This was once a nice working class neighborhood, and the exact block I lived on still was. The problem was the trash that came over from the other side. Kids could play safely, and you were pretty safe walking around, but you had a lot of nuisance issues to deal with. I had my tires slashed, my trashcans stolen(!), I had to walk over and menace some dipshit who's kid stole my stepson's bike... It could have been worse, but that's a shitty way to live imo. Home should feel safe and comfortable. Cheap and pretty don't factor in as much.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Revitalization can take place. Just don't buy the nicest, most expensive house of the lot. Always go for the fixer-upper unless the land/location has a major defect (flood plain, proximity to bad stuff, more street traffic)

Also, remember that urban development can often result in higher property taxes. As things get better, your costs will rise. Not saying it's a real bad thing...just a consideration.

 

[dainthomas]

You just keep on pushing my love over the boarder line!