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Have sold my house and am getting ready to move to Pittsburgh. Found a very nice home in Brookline but have seen maybe a dozen good homes in Penn Hills. My Realtor (by law) cannot discuss much about neighborhoods. I have walked some areas of Penn Hills and it seems okay....but I'm coming from a drug & gang infested industrial city where shootings are commonplace.
Just wondering why most of Penn Hills is for sale? What am I missing?
The school distrit is awful. That being said not all of Penn Hills is a bad place to live but some parts are definitely bad. Check out prior posts to see which areas to avoid.
It all depends on your budget. The bigger the budget the less you should be looking in Penn Hills.
If you're coming from a gang infested hellhole, then Penn Hills will probably be a major change for the better. If you aren't worried about the drugs, violence, and poor school district, then you should still think really hard about investing there. Buying a home is an investment in a community, and Penn Hills' reputation is garbage right now, even though there are a few pockets that have held out and are doing ok. Because it has a bad reputation, you have to decide if spending $95k on a home there is a good idea, considering if you want to move in 10 years it might be worth only $75k. Most likely, the value of your home in Penn Hills is only going to keep falling. Now, if you're planning on living there longterm and don't care that your house might lose 40% of its value within the next 20 years, it might be a great place for you...but beware of the money you will be losing if you ever decide to move. Also, lowball the seller immensely. Considering that the value is going to go down, you don't want to pay a dime more than you have to. Get the house at rock bottom price or walk away and find another. If you look online you can find hundreds of homes in Penn Hills for under $100k. They're a dime a dozen. But, just to let you know, you can find a home for similar price in a nicer area. You might want to check out Verona.
I lived in Penn Hills for 15 years and moved to Verona about 7 years ago - I've watched both towns go down hill since then and I would never encourage someone to invest in a home in either locations. There might be a lot of real estate at really good prices but it's only because people are trying to get out of there as fast as they can.
Thanks for your replies! Baton Rouge is a big industrial city that's corrupt, gang infested & a great place to be mugged or shot.
Since I live alone, schools aren't a problem, and since I have all-cash, the price isn't my MAIN consideration (although it's still a big consideration). My current neighborhood is one the downhill slide and I just don't want to go into another similar sitation. I realize that no place - be it city or country - is "safe" anymore but am tired of packing a gun under the seat of my car.
Any thoughts on Brookline or Mt Washington? I'll be retiring in Pittsburgh so am looking for a great neighborhood of reasonably priced homes where I can stay for the duration.
Thanks for your replies! Baton Rouge is a big industrial city that's corrupt, gang infested & a great place to be mugged or shot.
Since I live alone, schools aren't a problem, and since I have all-cash, the price isn't my MAIN consideration (although it's still a big consideration). My current neighborhood is one the downhill slide and I just don't want to go into another similar sitation. I realize that no place - be it city or country - is "safe" anymore but am tired of packing a gun under the seat of my car.
Any thoughts on Brookline or Mt Washington? I'll be retiring in Pittsburgh so am looking for a great neighborhood of reasonably priced homes where I can stay for the duration.
Penn Hills is not a gang infested territory, and you don't have to worry about getting mugged or shot. Penn Hills is turning into a black neighborhood, and unfortunately in Pittsburgh's history, when a neighborhood turns black, the crime rates sky rocket and the area becomes a dangerous place to live. Penn Hills is on the downhill slide as Penn Hills borders some dangerous city neighborhoods and the crime from those neighborhoods has now spilled over.
Penn Hills is very, very large though, so you cannot label the whole area as either "bad" or "good." Looking at a map of Penn Hills, you will find that Route 130 divides Penn Hills in half from north to south. Stay east of Route 130. The part of Penn Hills west of Route 130 sharply deteriorates once you pass that intersection.
About 15-20 years ago, if you looked at a map of Penn Hills, it was advised to stay east of Verona Road/Robinson Blvd, as the areas west of that intersection were not so great. Now, the border between "not so great" and "OK" has been moved to Route 130. That shows you how the crime from the city neighborhoods as spread east.
If you can get a good deal on a house east of Route 130 in Penn Hills, I'd go for it. Penn Hills does offer some outstanding homes at very cheap prices. Penn Hills is also conveniently located next to Monroeville which has all the shopping you need.
Penn Hills is a large area with "good" and "bad" parts, probably all of which are going to be a step up from what you are used to based on how you described your current situation. That said, its a neighborhood that is on the downturn and just having the label of Penn Hills is enough to make it really hard to sell a property. There's a reason why they are a ton of fairly nice looking houses for sale there at low prices... no one is buying. Especially if you don't know the area, you'd probably be best advised to stay away like everyone else is.
I'm not an expert on that area but I believe Brookline is also a boderline area that again, like Penn Hills, while its not awful has seen better days. Mt. Washington is pretty nice in the places that have views of the city, but gets a bit more run down and rougher the further away you get.
You might be better off in Dormont or Greentree if you can afford something there.
Looks like it's going to be Dormont-Greentree-Beechview for me! I especially like the Dormont area and it seems to be a stable area.
Question though.....Pittsburgh is filled with grand old buildings and wonderful old homes built when quality construction and quality materials were the norm. And it's all sitting there boarded up. Why doesn't the city or the state offer fix-up / paint-up incentives to property owners? Why don't they go after absentee landlords and owners of abandoned properties to make them maintain and clean up these areas? Why don't the residents in various areas organize Neighborhood Associations to deal directly with the city/county/state officials to keep pressure on them? I'd truly hate to see everything torn down and "modernized" with cookie-cutter concrete/glass structures like so many other places.
It's sad to think in the year 2010 people relate race/ethnicty of a community as a bad or good community. Color has nothing to do with crime in a community. Crime is everwhere and it is committed by all walks of life. Poverty plays a big part in crime and it affects all people. So if the companies in Pittsburgh and surrounding neighborhoods provided equality for all then maybe we would not see as much crime among ALL races in this area. Oh and by the way, I live on a street that is predominantly African American and their houses and lawns are well manicured.
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