the future of oak park, and buying a house now (Sacramento: hardwood floors, countertops)

[homerjoker]

OK. So here is the deal for me... I am looking to buy a house in/around Oak Park with the feeling that it will be a good investment in this sense:

I am 39 and plan on living in the house for at least 10 years, if not longer

I am looking [mostly] at the area between 12th/14th ave and Broadway.... and between Franklin and 44th st. [ i have looked at a few places on big lots that i like ... and have nixed some others... i know the area is not perfect... but has potential ]

I have really bad credit, but can spend 40k cash on a house, with about 10k for improvements/security/landscaping. {i have turned other dilapidated hud repo's into really nice properties}

I have walked the area in the daytime and at dusk over the past 3 weeks and do not have a problem with it or the people that live there, [ no judgments but i am not an outer suburbs kinda person... either the city or way the frak out in the country]

I like Sacramento - it is like California's Portland to me... working class, hipster, freaky, diverse... as well as close to reno, tahoe,sf etc...

I believe that the pollution [ my one real sacto downer ] will clear up here due to green technology and autos.

I have a roommate that wants to move with me and will pay $400 a month.

The other places i can afford to buy in right now are ohio[anywhere], pittsburgh, memphis, florida[jacksonville,panama city, tampa].... but i do not know these cities [save pgh] ... i have lived in Northern Ca for the last 15 years... from way up north ... down to SF... as well as pgh and nyc

yikes i am rambling

so here is my question to all you faithful and knowledgeable posters...

Is Oak Park going to be revitalized [ over the next 10 years or so ]. It seems to be right next to some really 'nice' areas [ curtis park, land park, midtown]

My gut says yes. and also my gut says that after obama gets inaugurated, there will be all kinds of money thrown at the housing crisis, and i may miss my window.

please try not to hit me with a myriad of graphs and charts...too confusing although i have already linked to many posters data.

ok ready set ..go

[wburg]

In the long term, yeah, Oak Park is going to get better. Probably from Broadway southward, over the next decade or so. It will take a while, but it will happen. If you're comfortable walking around 12th/14th Ave, try it a few times at different times and days to be sure, but I'd say go for it. Parts of Oak Park along Broadway, 2nd Avenue and 4th Avenue are going to be part of a new city historic district, and a "Fresh & Easy" market is slated for a vacant lot on Broadway.

Possibly more important than Obama in the White House for Oak Park is Sacramento's new mayor, Kevin Johnson, who grew up in Oak Park and came back to Sacramento after retiring from professional basketball, in part to help revitalize the neighborhood (admittedly, with mixed results.) I'm pretty sure he is going to put some attention, and city money, on seeing his old neighborhood get better.

Currently the folks moving to Oak Park are many of the students and hipsters who were the first foot in the door into Midtown before it became the center of attention--they moved because it was cheap and had charm, and they didn't mind the indifferent landlords, the drug dealers and prostitutes, or the occasional mugging. Oak Park was a lot more dangerous and hostile then, and the way I tend to describe it is that it's more like Midtown was 20 years ago, when the people eager to move there now would never set foot in the neighborhood.

If you're good at fixing stuff, look for a messed up fixer that needs some love, and do the work yourself. You'll get back your sweat equity and then some. If you like restoring old houses, there are some real diamonds in the rough waiting for someone to bring back their faded glory. A friend recently did something kind of similar: he didn't qualify for much credit but had some cash, and some friends willing to help, so he bought a serious fixer and with a little help he's turning it into a beautiful home.

All this being said, I'd strongly recommend getting a home security system, using good locks, and lighting your house well. The neighborhood's getting better, but there are still folks looking to steal your stuff. If you've lived in this sort of place, you probably already know the rules to discourage that sort of behavior. Good luck!

[homerjoker]

thanks WB... I have been reading a lot of your posts and you always have great perspective. I was getting a bit nervous after reading some of these other posts... omg...

from what i understand Heather Fargo was doing a good job [yes?] ... but part of my gut feeling has to do with the new mayor.

good advice... and i have some big dogs as well... there really are some cute little houses there.. i hope the potential of the area is realized...

if all goes well i'll have you over for housewarming....

thanks again

[NewToCA]

While I haven't seen the evolution of Midtown, it does seem as though the Oak Park location is adjacent to some pretty nice areas.

Only going by what I have seen in other cities with similar situations, I would probably try to buy a place as far north and west as you can find in Oak Park. My experience has been that when depressed areas go through significant improvements it is uneven at first (and for many years), and the initial areas that improve are those closest to the currently desirable areas.

[zen_klown]

I think the major positive consequence of Kevin Johnson becoming Mayor is that there will be a much bigger push to bring back Oak Park. There will be city money, but other developers are going to be proposing projects in Oak Park to gain favor with the Mayor as well.

When Joe Serna was Mayor there was a major effort to work on Del Paso Blvd and a lot got done while he was in office.

The primary area that I think will see the most change is the area on Broadway from Alhambra to MLK. Its adajent to property that either Kevin Johnson owns or his St. Hope development company own. I also think on Stockton Blvd from 14th Avenue to Fruitridge, that area will get a lot of attention. I think MLK blvd will take longer.

If you feel comfortable with Oak Park right now, I doubt the neighborhood will get any worse.

Oak Park has weird economics. Housing prices are so cheap in Oak Park, there can be a fair amount of homes where its cheaper to abandon the home than to fix it up. That is the negative of Oak Park.

But the positive is that a lot of those homes get taken over by the government and they have programs to fix them up. So you might check the following programs out here.

HUD Homes
Existing Homes for Resale (http://www.shra.org/Content/Housing/HomeSales/existing.htm - broken link)

The other thing to look at is the homes that were fixed up in Oak Park during the housing boom. Prices have dropped a lot in Oak Park. During the boom it was economical to make improvements to the property that might have cost more than the homes present worth.

Right now most owner occupants would probably prefer a fixer upper in a better neighborhood to a home in perfect condition in Oak Park. In Oak Park people are no longer paying a premium for granite countertops, but during the boom, people were adding granite counter tops to homes in Oak Park. They were also making fairly elaborate improvements to kitchens and baths. As a result right now you can buy places right now that are already fixed up for less than the cost of fixing the property up to that level yourself.

[wburg]

Speaking of granite countertops, there are plenty of other things that are laughably inappropriate in Oak Park historic homes--most especially, dual-pane vinyl windows. A lot of house flippers tore out the century-old windows in a lot of Oak Park homes, slapping in ugly vinyl dual-panes and trashing the wooden single-hung frames, featuring character-filled "wavy" glass and old-growth redwood frames so they could put "NEW ENVIROMENTAL DUAL PANE WINDOWS" in the ad and jack up the price. Most of those windows are so cheap they will lose seal inside of a decade, whereas an original single-hung window can be restored for a few bucks, and with the right treatment can be about as energy-efficient as a dual-pane (most heat loss in older homes is through the shell, not the windows) and can last for another century.

Some of the "flipper" homes in Oak Park were "fixed up" in this fashion, but a lot of them were more like "half fixed up"--the new buyer started tearing stuff out (like lath & plaster interior walls, hardwood floors, oak built-ins, etc) and then ran out of money before they could finish the job, leaving a semi-deconstructed interior that needs a lot of repair just to be made habitable. Worse, a lot of homes that were left vacant in all this boom mess have been stripped of wiring, fixtures and anything sellable by neighborhood scavengers, or used as impromptu crack dens. They might have left those granite countertops alone, though, as there isn't much of a salvage market for them.

Admittedly, a lot of the historic fabric in many Oak Park homes has been compromised by subsequent renovation, damage, repair, and conversion. Oddly enough, some of the best candidates for restoration are buildings owned by landlords too lazy and incompetent to even bother with "fancy" vinyl siding,""energy-efficient" vinyl windows or "fashionable" wall-to-wall shag carpeting and avocado kitchens.

[zen_klown]

Here I couldn't agree more with wburg.

[homerjoker]

thanks again guys...
and yes i do agree... i love that old glass, as well as keeping as much original feel as possible. i am definitely not a cardboard fake wood floor kind of guy...

keep that info train rolling for everyone on these boards...

[Shope]

Oh yea, Oak Park is an up and coming neihborhood