That garage conversion is probably not even legal, not many are especially in “economically disadvantage” cities. Besides a two families of illegal’s who would want to live there? Even illegal’s will figure out they could rent just as much for half that?

Ugly,
very tiny,
cage bars,
horrible neighborhood,
$289,000.

Hmmmm….

No there is no bubble.

A good candidate for getting the Japanese experience of falling property prices for 14 consecutive years.

Dump now, before it falls further. I’ll be a buyer again, in about 15 years.

Good point. Most people don’t realize that raising rents isn’t an exact science. Plus, rents need to reflect the income of those in the immediate area and not that of outside property owners.

You think they can jack rents up to $1,500 a month? No way, this thing will sit empty for a long time.

Most investors don’t factor in things such as vacancy cost, repairs, taxes, and insurance. At the end of the day you are bringing in about 55% of your rental income. That is if you rent a house for $1,000 a month after payments toward the mortgage and other expenses you have an operating income of 55% that you can count as true rental income. That is why even rentals in other parts of this country are hard to cash flow even with 10% down. Most late night infomercials would like you to believe that it is easy to cash flow but real estate investing for the long-term is no easy work, but it is worth it with good deals in solid areas that reflect real estate market fundamentals (aka you aren’t living in bubbleland).

This property is negative cash flowing so bad you might end up in 1970 and find yourself in platform shoes.