Another House?

It's just a hunch, but I don't foresee our part of town as being an area that will experience a financial Renaissance any time soon. All we know is that we bought the place to live in it, not to make money off a re-sale down the road. The homes for sale are lasting forever on the market, and, when sold, aren't selling for big dollars. There are an awful lot of abandoned buildings and an unfortunately high foreclosure rate.

And we're considering the purchase of another East Price Hill house.

It doesn't make much sense when presented that way, I know. But we moved here because we felt like it's where we needed to be. More accurately, as cheesy as it sounds, we moved here because we felt like it's where God led us. And we want to make this place nicer than it currently is.

In my opinion, one of the best things that could happen to our community would be an increase in owner-occupied homes. Homeownership (or condo-ownership, etc.) is a good thing... go ahead, readers, and try to argue against that!

We were contacted a couple weeks ago about a homeowner in our neighborhood who is going to be foreclosed upon if an "investor" is not found to step in. It is not an extravagant home by any means, but the homeowner has been there for 13 years and wants to stay. They're looking for someone to buy the house and rent it back to them for a couple years, while their credit score recovers from the current mess it is today.

• Best-case scenario: the homeowner gets to keep the house, homeowner helps get the place fixed up, & we make some money on the sale back to the current owner
• Worst-case scenario: the homeowner doesn't get their act together, we sink money into a property we cannot sell, & another EPH home sits vacant

We'll see what happens... I never thought I'd even consider buying an "investment" property. If it was purely a business decision, no way... not interested. If it was purely to help someone out, no way... too much risk of my family's financial situation. But now, there's some combination of these motivations in front of us, and it's intriguing...