Agreed. My most ambitious project was re-vamping a Victorian in an historic river town in Wisconsin. I was never so glad to be rid of a house as I was that one, LOL!
And I never tried anything stupid like that, again. :)
Haha,
Yea, rust belt ain't like what you see on TV.. you can't buy a house, screw everything up for a year and still expect to make a huge payday, because appreciation bailed you out.
In these markets finding a good solid buyer is far more work than finding the deal property.
Hard for folks in those high demand markets to grasp.. they just see cheap purchase price, and think Wow, $20k for a livable condition house?? That's a steal.... Then they buy it and find out, its only worth 20k because its in crime central in a depressed economy, and can't be rented to anyone of means, and so they wind up renting to someone who trashes it, and find themselves a few years later with a house needing 10-30k in repairs and only worth 20k total.
Happens all the time.