unethical or not?

[riflearm2]

i have mentioned it before on here, but years ago, a colleague and i invested in a handful of baltimore shell row houses to flip. he had been successful in hiring former felons in work release programs to do most of the labor on properties he had flipped previously. if they missed a day unexcused, they knew they were going back to jail. almost all of them were thankful that somebody would hire them and give them a solid day's pay. they were cheap and good workers. shells were going for $5000-$35,000, and the properties were selling in a month for around $160,000. at the time, we looked into doing the same thing in detroit, but decided against it.

this article talks about how cheap properties are in detroit (and have been for years). one very young kid owns a block of properties. that is fine. but, where the issue lies is that many of those properties arent vacant. the houses have tax liens on them. many of them are sold on the steps of the courthouse for just a few thousand dollars. the residents are forced out with no place to turn.

could you guys do this? im sure you can justify it to yourself; those people decided to spend their money elsewhere or decided not to work instead of paying their taxes. why should they get a free ride when everyone else has to pay taxes? i couldnt do it to people though.

could you guys?



http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/27/detroits-young-gentrifiers-face-a-daunting-task-in-buying-500-homes-evicting-poor-residents

 

[GK4Herd]

I could never do it. I couldn't live with myself. But there are people and companies that specialize in this kind of thing. I'm sure someone here will rationalize that they are just losers. Maybe Michigan can do it than stand on the curb and laugh a the losers while they are being evicted.

Merry Christmas.

 

[-CarlHungus-]

I probably could not do it, but at the same time would not fault those that could. If you're doing it remotely from FL though and it's not as in your face I may possibly be more likely to pull the trigger though. Definitely not if I lived there.

One thing to mention though is that you were probably intimately familiar with Baltimore and the dynamics/economics of the gentrification movement. I would be wary about investing in areas I'm not as familiar with.

With that said, you're absolutely right - there's money to be made in areas where the hipsters, artists, and young professional singles are starting to invade (see East Nashville, for example). I'm half joking, but when the coffee shop and brewery go in in the (formerly) kind of ghetto areas, they will flock there. Buy an old craftsman house, fix it up a little (without taking it's charm), and there's big money to be made.

 

[GK4Herd]

I'm not sure the fact that rifle is in another state changes the ethics of it. It is just easier when you don't see it first hand. It would be the moral equivalent of the premise of the movie "The Box.

 

[Raoul Duke MU]

If the owners are idiots, yeah I could. But I have heard too many horror stories about it being done to the elderly, and no way could I do that.

Kudos for hiring the guys from the halfway houses. I used to hire a lot of those guys, 90% were great employees. Like you said, they have a hell of a motivation to show up every day and work hard. They would also refer new guys they felt were serious about getting their shit together. Most of them were in for drug offenses, and they were hustlers with a desire to make money. The state is always drug testing them so they were less of a drug problem risk than the general population. The CO's even deove them to and from work, so no call outs claiming car trouble.The other 10%? They fvxked up and just went back to the joint, I didn't even have to sit them down and fire them. Win-win all around.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[-CarlHungus-]

Originally posted by GK4Herd:
I'm not sure the fact that rifle is in another state changes the ethics of it. It is just easier when you don't see it first hand. It would be the moral equivalent of the premise of the movie "The Box.

I agree, Gk.

it does not change the ethics, it just changes the amount of "realism" it adds when you're geographically closer to it all.

I have no clue, but i'd guess there afr some abandoned properties there that may work nearly as well as those that ate occupied.

 

[riflearm2]

im not contemplating doing it. i was just curious as to some of your thoughts. there is a lot of money to be made doing it, even if you just buy the properties and rent them back out or sell them to the former owner. as the college kid in the article did, you can buy a block for quite cheap. there are countless ideas what a person could do in a down area if buying blocks at a time.

the situation in baltimore was different in that people didnt live in those shells. they, mostly, were literally just shells. no windows, etc. I have pics of them on another laptop somewhere.

 

[i am herdman]

I think there are better ways to make a living. I don't know if I could live myself for taking a family's house.

 

[HerdandHokies]

Couldn't do it. People that do aren't monsters, but I couldn't.

 

[MichiganHerd]

Maybe Michigan can do it than stand on the curb and laugh a the losers while they are being evicted.

Merry Christmas.

Lots of people are doing it, but they're not laughing. These folks are too tough to laugh at. Laugh at them, and they'll shoot your brains out. I'll continue to laugh at folks that get pissed off because they're going into final jeopardy and throw a fit because Alex tells them to GTFO.

Those people that want something for nothing...those are the ones I'll continue to laugh at. Them, and fruits.

 

[HerdFan73]

Id have a hard time doing it, but somebody has to. If there are no consequences to not paying taxes, where is the motivation for people to find a way to pay them? And im sure its a mix of losers, and just straight up victims. It's really sad for the victims.

I like the idea of renting to the former owner, at a reasonable rate, for a fixed period of time with the understanding that at the end of that period, you needed to have found somewhere else because rent or the price or the price of the home would be going to market rate.

I definitely couldn't be the guy that throws the folks out on the street, tears everything down and builds some condo's. There are plenty of those people out there as well. I do think there needs to be somebody that purchases and does something with the properties, otherwise the area will never become revitalized. So to answer the question, no I dont think the act in of itself is unethical. Some people could choose to go about it unethically, however.

 

[WV-FAN]

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