Why are there so many once perfectly good homes in the Pittsburgh area that have been left to rot for decades? It's odd that so many of them seem to have been completely abandoned and not even inhabited by lower income families. Could they be good diy investment opportunities?
Can't speak specifically to Pittsburg but generally a structure like the one in the pic isn't just dilapidated from lack of attention, even if it was maintained its at an age where major systems are reaching the end of their service life (plumbing) or are so old that they need upgrading for modern lifestyles and just because you can't get parts or can't meet code when doing repairs (electrical, HVAC)...
Add in things like lead and asbestos and mold remediation and places like that may only be worth the land value and even that may need to be balanced againt the cost to scrape the structure.
And if there's multiple homes in that condition in the general area, that probably means the land value isn't great and so the cost to just make the place habitable by law may be more than it's possibly worth.
Also in areas where this kind of thing is common there may be municipal rules regarding (back) taxes, permits, etc. that are a disincentive to anyone trying to rehab them, with officials who just don't GAF.
Homes like OP's pic generally require gutting (to an extent), and certainly replacement of the electrical system and plumbing. You'd absolutely want to add insulation then too.
Suprisingly, the radiator system in those old homes is perfectly fine for modern use. Just replace the old coal boiler with a natural-gas fired furnace.
Nope. That house is a tear down. There's nothing salvagble in a structure like that. If there was, it wouldn't be selling for $40k - you're buying the land, and that's dirt cheap for land, until you look up where that land is.
Basically untouchable land without government intervention, but instead the goverment disrespects the new owner by forcing them to pay decades of back taxes instead
I’ve flipped a house deep in browntown and the whole back property tax thing hasn’t really been an issue since the recession. These cities are desperate for investment to fix these properties. It’s fairly straightforward for a developer/GC to submit a tax discharge petition, and I remember we ended up settling on a $2000 payment to the city clerk to get it cleared up.
The main issue is the neighborhood. Keep in mind you’ll need cameras (with signs), good fencing, keep the property lighted 24/7. Deterrence is key, there’re plenty of easier targets around. Tell your subs to take their tools out at the end of every day. If the local PD doesn’t give a frick, don’t bother. I did this pre-George Floyd.
Final point? Don’t do it. Find a 70’s ranch in the white suburbs to fix up. The headache and worry to do this and make at most 10-15k over 8 months isn’t worth it. I’ll never do it again.
Traditionally radiators in those houses were filled with water and frozen, so scrap them too.
Fun fact: low income families don't like to be murdered just as much as better off families don't
>amenities: A+
Are you from Pittsburgh/do you live there?
Anyways, here's the long answer:
In the 1970s, Pittsburgh had a pretty large population and was an industrial powerhouse. It was the world's top producer of steel. It was of such strategic importance that the US Army set up an entire anti-ballistic missile system around the area, because it was assumed that it would be a prime target in any war.
Then, in the 1980s, the western world decided that manufacturing shit was lame, and we could just have Japan (later China/Vietnam/etc) do it instead. More profitable to build new factories in countries with none of those silly "environmental protections" or "workers rights". So, all but *one* of the steel mills closed in the Pittsburgh area.
With the literal foundation of the area's economy removed overnight, work dried up left and right. It was basically as bad as the Great Depression. With no way to make a living, people left in droves. The neighborhoods where the mill workers and their families lived became empty shells. House values plummeted, and people were literally just abandoning their houses because the outstanding balance on their mortage was for more than the house was worth.
So you've got these neighborhoods that have literally no jobs, very few people living there, and shit public services now that there's no revenue - but now tons of extra houses. This made rents ridiculously low, and the "usual suspects" moved in - the kinds of people who enjoy 9mm handguns and aren't concerned about working a job. Crime subsequently skyrocketed in those areas, preventing any significant investment or repopulation.
1/2
2/2
It's now the late 90s, and Pittsburgh manages to make a miraculous economic recovery. The many universities and the city's extensive medical sector lead the way to it becoming an education/medicine/robotics type hub.
Other cities (e.g. Gary, Detroit, etc) didn't fare so well.
Fast forward to today. More young people are moving to Pittsburgh, and the young people born/raised there quit fleeing. The population still is on a very slight decline, since there is a massive population of old boomers which are dying off. This means that many of those houses that were abandoned in the 80's still haven't had any attention, and 40 years of neglect will really take a toll on any building.
As for PrepHole potential: Yes. Make sure you pick the right neighborhoods. The typical shitty "house-flipper" approach won't work very well, since there is no shortage of nicer homes for people with some money to move into.
You can buy properties that are currently very shitty for extremely low sums. If you put the work in to make them liveable (not "fancy"), they will absolutely sell/rent. Real PrepHole is required though, since they will probably need major work done. Nothing that a man can't do himself, but you can't be one of those homosexual flippers who put down a coat of paint, fresh carpet, and new light switches.
Most of these houses are tear downs.
Most of them hav tax liens on them.
Most of them are in black neighborhoods, with rising crime rates, that nobody wants to live in.
People are not returning to Pittsburg in droves. They were a last resort area for the home flipping locusts who were driving up prices before interest rates started going up.
Nobody will buy a new home in those neighborhoods, if you can even finish construction - any copper will be stripped out the minute your back is turned.
Any money put into these rotting corpses will never be made back. They are tear downs. They should be condemned. The city and county hasn't pulled them down because it's not worth the cost. The Chinese already tried to flip these b***hes and lost their shirts. They were buying whole blocks, and nothing sold.
Location, location, location. The house in the OP post is in Wilkinsburg, an area with some of the highest black population in Pittsburg, and the highest crime rate. You'd be buying a tear down in a literal war zone. There are safer parts of Pittsburg, but houses won't be 40k there. This price listed isn't even the cost of the land it's on. That should be a red flag for anyone - some fool is dumping it off on a greater fool.
But "let's get dummy to buy bad house in Black personland, hurr durr, I copypasta wiki to pretend to have clue hurr durrr", yada yada.
literally this
>t. sold teardowns in Chester, PA to morons for more than the land is worth for a year or so
I live in eastern pa and have developed a borderline fetish with the cheap property is western pa, particularly the corridor between Pittsburgh and Youngstown OH, around the Beaver area. Not exactly fix and flip but first home type stuff, I currently live with my parents and work a basic warehouse job, and can make the same wages over there, with much easier access to property. Everything around me is like 900 minimum for rent and 250k for livable real estate (about an hour west of Philly). Dunno if it's just a pipe dream and I should go back to college for a career, or if it's worth moving somewhere cheaper and staying in the same $20-27/hr wage bracket. Honestly most the people I know who got a degree aren't making more than 80k annually, most are 60-80, a few are 100k+ but those are the super lucrative careers that're closer to the city and are highly competitive and frankly I just don't care to live that way. It just seems so reasonable when there's stuff like this available https://apps.realtor.com/mUAZ/erx9k8qu
And I don't have to gamble on an expensive degree to get ahead.
It doesn't have to be that exact area either, guy i know got a 30 year mortgage on a 140k home in Reading a few years ago and it's already appreciated like 30 grand. He's only got a GED too, partied through his early twenties and now makes $27/hr with a factory job he got off indeed. Blew my mind.
Anyway I'd be interested to hear some real opinions on this because everyone where I live made their fortune in law or marketing or some fancy pedigreed career path, and when I talk about how confused I am they honestly don't know what to say. On the one hand I feel privileged for growing up in a nice area, on the other I feel totally screwed in economic mobility. So I dunno call me a homosexual or whatever I guess, I don't care, shitposting is still going to be cheaper than $120/hr therapy.
Even though it has the feel and I could swear its pasta
Quality post.
Appreciated
Similar ~~*western world*~~ administrative sabotage of industry in southern Ontario, Canada.
this thread probably already covered it perfectly. When something is this shot up the surrounding neighborhood is likely also in tatters, and few developers have the willpower to reconstruct an entire neighborhood at a time when you can just lay down a mcmansion suburb in the middle of a wasteland.
I see all the other Anon have said what I came to say. You can find all sorts of cheap houses in PA (or NCWV where I’m at) but the locations suck and no one with any money wants to live or buy there.
Because Black folk.
the decline of an era
>Why are there so many once perfectly good homes in the Pittsburgh area that have been left to rot for decades?
it went through the same thing as Youngstown Ohio but on a bigger scale
>Youngstown is a city in Ohio at the border with Pennsylvania
>in 1945 the Youngstown steel mill employed 15,000 men in 8 hour shifts
>15,000x4 shifts = 60,000 employees
Youngstown was YUUUGE blast furnace with a ladle that could pour 35,000 tons of liquid steel in one go
>fast forward through the decades as demand has been gradually lowering and increased imports
>eventually the blast furnaces are being replaced with more modern steel mills
Pittsburg had blast furnace type facilities on a scale that covered several square miles
as they gradually go through lowered production before being partially replaced tens of thousands of men were unemployed
loss of employment + rising minority population makes people leave
there were more houses than people
any homosexuals that moved into the city went for newly built or renovated apartment buildings
entire residential areas were left completely abandoned
Of all the boards, I swear PrepHole has the lowest average intelligence.
>employed 15,000 men in 8 hour shifts
>15,000x4 shifts = 60,000 employees
Though it is fun to imagine you a boomer, "Why, back in my prime, days were 32 hours long! And *real men* worked every one of 'em!"
>anime forum
>board filled with bored NEETs looking to kill time, and high school dropout tradies
Yes, you are unironically correct. This board has a huge amount of morons
Nobody wants to work every single day. I dunno how exactly scheduling works with 8 hours shifts, but with 12 hour shifts you generally have 4 shifts worth of workers and they work every other day or every other week or something similar. Your post was extremely ironic, at least to me.
have you actually ever held a job?
Houses like these are in such a shithole that I'm suprised there isnt a government program you couldnt take advantage of to at least make them habitable and become a slumlord, because a slum would literally be an improvement over what they are now.
This is so fricking sad it makes me furious.
the property tax in some of the depressed areas is insane. you have to be careful - a lot of houses are vacant in those areas because one year of taxes is more than the house is worth. wilkinsburg is one such place - it is still it's own borough and the taxes are ludicrous and they will reassess your house when you buy so nobody mores there. pretty moronic really...
120 a hr? shit it was only 50 WHEN i was crazy HEHEHEHEHEH
israelites