Saturday, March 10, 2007

Growth real estate investing info

This article on real estate investing info is interesting in that a company has picked out 10 areas of big cities that are now considered "up and coming," which -- as the article points out -- is a nice way of saying that the reason the houses are relatively cheap is because of the danger.

The neighborhood listed for St Louis is Tiffany, which I'm somewhat familiar with due to having walked around it many times in the late 1980s when I was a cable TV salesperson. Also, I still work for a government agency and much of that neighborhood is part of our area. Though I don't go there in person now, I see and know many people who stay there.

As the article says, it's multicultural. It doesn't mention that it does not contain any Laotians, because they all moved out years ago -- at the same time, immediately following the shooting death of a Laotian man by an African-American neighbor.

Even when I was selling cable TV, I did notice that there were affluent-looking young whites living in some of the more developed buildings right next to Grand.

Of course, areas do change. When I first started selling cable TV, I felt comfortable walking up and down streets such as Lafayette and McRee. It was years later when I was there and a young African-American said, "What's a white person doing here?"

There's been money pouring into other low-income, high-crime areas of St Louis, such as Dutchtown. I remember driving on Delmar between Grand and Kingshighway and being startled by seeing some brand new, nice red brick houses -- often next door to condemned, dilapidated old buildings.

Seems to me there's a parallel between moving into such high-risk neighborhoods in search of real estate values that you hope will grow a lot as time goes by and the bad people in the neighborhood move away (you hope) and investing in growth stocks. You're taking a gamble. Myself, having lived in South St Louis both before and after it became a "Hood," I would be scared to death to move to such places, even though I can see the attraction for young people looking for affordable places to live and hoping to reduce transportation costs.

The whole gamble depends on enough other people making the same move behind you -- from the suburbs back to the city. Again, I can see the value for young people, but once they have children, they should want to get them out of the St Louis city school system.

So when you buy a growth stock with a good story, get a lot of good investing info. Remember that your future return depends on a lot of other people buying that stock behind you. You may be paying a lot of money for a condo that's next door to a crack house.