Atlantic Cities article on Penn Hills (Pittsburgh, Highland Park: low income, renters, how much)

[BrianTH]

Courtesy of Chris Briem. It includes some dire statistics, but also some hopeful signs, and general confirms that Penn Hills is too large and diverse in terms of neighborhood status to be easily characterized:

'We Buy Houses': Decline and Opportunity in Pittsburgh's East Suburbs - Neighborhoods - The Atlantic Cities

[sparrowmint]

Sorry to bump this, but I just came across this article myself and did a search to see if it was talked about.

I don't trust these people at all. In the space of about a month, four or five of these signs have gone up on just my road alone, and it gets ridiculous once you include the neighbouring streets. They claim in the article that they're intending to the flip these houses for six figures. That'd be great. So why are "for rent" signs going up immediately on every single one of them? Hell, the picture on the article betrays the real situation. It shows the for rent sign on the lawn. My pocket of Penn Hills is middle class and quiet. An influx of low income renters and their absentee landlords is not exactly going to turn the area into one with homes worth six figures. I'm not especially concerned about house values. In fact, since I don't want my taxes to rise, I'd like my house value to stay approximately as is. But I'm not a fan of my area being invaded by slumlords either. Such is the risk of buying around here though, so I guess it's a wait and see thing. I just don't see anything positive about this though, except on the lowest level where you avoid Penn Hills becoming a prairie of torn down or abandoned houses. If very low income renters are considered "better" than empty houses, that's the only level on which this is "positive" for Penn Hills.

I don't live in one of the specific Penn Hills neighbourhoods mentioned in the article. They're just everywhere now.

[aw_now_what]

I take "we buy houses" signs off the telephone poles every time I see them. I don't mean Penn Hills, but where I live in Lawrenceville and also Polish Hill, Friendship, Highland Park, North Side.

[sparrowmint]

I wonder how much business they actually do in several of those areas? I don't know about all of the areas you listed, but my impression of some of them is that they're in demand enough that they don't need speculators to buy up all the properties. In Penn Hills, some places do stay on the market forever* and these people seem to be changing that a bit, not that they're buying for very high prices. If they were actually flipping them all and succeeding at selling them for high prices, that'd be something. They're outsiders though, and it seems to me that when they started, they looked at house quality and the relative stability of some pockets in Penn Hills and thought they could sell if they improved the interiors of these houses. Putting nice kitchens in a house on a quiet street doesn't change the school district though, so who are they selling to? People like me who don't want children are a minority of the population.

Unfortunately, it's not their advertising signs I see much. I've seen a couple of them on poles on Frankstown Road, but that's about it. It's the signs on the lawns of the houses they've bought that I see far more, and then the possible damage is already done.

*My house was on the market for 3 years before we bought it, despite it being in great shape and having a great yard. The only changes we've had to make were purely cosmetic and optional, like pulling out the brand new carpet in favour of hard flooring (pets) and changing the chain link fence into a wooden privacy fence (again, due to pets).