How real estate investors improve neighborhoods

How real estate investors improve a neighborhood


If there is one thing in the real estate market that truly makes my blood boil, it’s when anyone badmouths real estate investors.   There at a few bad apples in our industry who do things that they should not do, these people are not real estate investors, they are crooks.   The vast majority of real estate investors are good honorable people who should be viewed as an asset to any community.

Real estate investors buy old abandoned property and convert these shells from eye sores and drug dens into tax producing family homes.  Real estate investors risk their cash and spend their time to make these conversions.

It is the real estate investor who turns an old outdated house into an updated show place.    Most professional real estate investors look to improve their property beyond the other houses on the street.  The reason that real estate investors do this is that they can command higher rentals rates and sell their houses for more money that way.  The easiest way to see this is in the real world is to travel to your city’s hottest up and coming neighborhood.  What you will see there are herds of real estate investors either building new houses on vacant land or rehabbing old houses.

This is not theory to me, but the core of my business.  As I am writing this article, my personal business is improving several Pittsburgh neighborhoods.  In the Brighton Heights area, one of my crews is painting and re-carpeting a house of mine as well as improving the curb appeal to attract a new renter.  At the same time, my crews are completely rehabbing houses in Pittsburgh’s central north side, Pine Richland School District, and Hampton Township.  I am also putting together a deal to develop raw land in Pittsburgh Southside area.  In this process, my little company will directly improve five different neighborhoods.  I have no idea how many real estate investors there are in America, but I can assure you that we, collectively are pouring billions of dollars into improving neighborhoods, one house at a time.

Do you know what else we do?  We create a ton of tax revenue for the municipalities when we improve property.   When my company rehabs a house, we look to at least triple its value.  There are several Pittsburgh area municipalities that a just blighted by abandoned property.  This is true for every city in America.  If the politicians really understood the good that real estate investors can do, they would give these houses to real estate investors for free.   What actually happens is that the politicians pass laws that allow taxes and other liens to stack up on these houses to the point where the liens are so pricey that nobody can afford to buy, fix, and payoff the back taxes on these properties. So the houses rot until some taxing authority eventually gets around to selling them, by that time, many of the houses are too far gone.  It’s a matter of simple math.  A house that needs 50k in repairs has to be worth more than 50k when it’s all done or nobody will ever buy it.

I recently had one wonderful man who tracked down the owners of every vacant property in his zip code.  There were too many properties for any one investor to deal with.  He presented the list of vacant properties to my real estate club and we improved a number of those houses, thus improving that town.  This made the neighbors very happy.

If you want to sell a house that needs improvement or if you live next to one of these eyesores, just contact your local real estate investors club.  If you happen to live in Pittsburgh then email me directly at

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