Moving to Springfield. Need neighborhood opinions please! (Branson, California: real estate, rentals)

[Movin_movin_movin]

We are moving out to Springfield in June. My husband retired from the military a few years ago and now we want a change in scenery from what we have on the West Coast.

We are thinking of buying a smaller fixer upper in town. We want to pay cash because some of the homes are really inexpensive, live in it for awhile, then use it as a rental. We are buying site unseen. Yes, probably not the best decision, but we know that whatever we get we will have to do a lot of work on the home, plus there is less concern because it won't be our "forever" home. As long as the home is structurally sound, we don't care. HOWEVER, we want to live in a safe neighborhood. Are the older neighborhoods decent? I thought I had researched the crime stats pretty thoroughly, but then read another posters post on gang crime, and an over abundance of theft and drug crimes. Is this true? Every town has these problems to a certain degree, I just want to make sure we aren't moving our family to someplace where this is a huge issue. Do we need to worry about our vehicles being broken into more than the average town? Or have our home burglarized? Please don't think I am a worry wart, I guess you could say that we care more about where we will be living than what we will be living in!

[Arrby]

Originally Posted by Movin_movin_movin

We are moving out to Springfield in June. My husband retired from the military a few years ago and now we want a change in scenery from what we have on the West Coast.

We are thinking of buying a smaller fixer upper in town... We are buying site unseen....

I assume you mean "sight unseen". Or maybe you aren't going to see the site either. Either way here is advice I usually charge a great deal of money for -

Don't.

There is no valid reason to to this. Get a six month rental, pay storage fees if you have to, but do not buy real estate without seeing both it and the neighborhood.

Concerning older neighborhoods, there is no blanket answer. Some of the priciest properties in town are in older neighborhoods. As are the worst. Some of these two extremes are within a couple blocks of each other. Without having a fairly narrow area defined no one can answer your question.

And yes, properties are comparatively inexpensive here. Check with local banks for repos in their inventories and you may discover they are even less expensive than you think.

I can also tell you from personal experience that the investment return on rentals stinks right now, and has for at least three years. Rental prices may be slightly firming up a bit, but if so it is only a little bit.

[karesellsbranson]

I moved to Springfield in 1959. I have also served as an Elementary Principal. There are many wonderful areas in both Springfield and Branson. If you are looking for less crime, you may want to consider the Branson area. Both Springfield and Branson are wonderful places to live and have great deals on homes in great areas.

[christina0001]

Springfield is a very nice town, and overall, reasonably safe. I can't recommend any particular neighborhoods. But your plan is very risky. You've got to do more homework than throwing a dart at a map and then moving your family to a new town, new home sight-unseen. The market here is very different than in CA, and you're unlikely to make any money flipping a house here like folks did on the coasts over the past several years without doing some serious homework.

[mrschilicook]

Originally Posted by Movin_movin_movin

We are moving out to Springfield in June. My husband retired from the military a few years ago and now we want a change in scenery from what we have on the West Coast.

We are thinking of buying a smaller fixer upper in town. We want to pay cash because some of the homes are really inexpensive, live in it for awhile, then use it as a rental. We are buying site unseen. Yes, probably not the best decision, but we know that whatever we get we will have to do a lot of work on the home, plus there is less concern because it won't be our "forever" home. As long as the home is structurally sound, we don't care. HOWEVER, we want to live in a safe neighborhood. Are the older neighborhoods decent? I thought I had researched the crime stats pretty thoroughly, but then read another posters post on gang crime, and an over abundance of theft and drug crimes. Is this true? Every town has these problems to a certain degree, I just want to make sure we aren't moving our family to someplace where this is a huge issue. Do we need to worry about our vehicles being broken into more than the average town? Or have our home burglarized? Please don't think I am a worry wart, I guess you could say that we care more about where we will be living than what we will be living in!

I moved here from northern Cali 4 years ago. Springfield is like many other cities of the same size. Older areas can be really really nice, or they can be really run-down. There are one or two areas that have higher crime rates and they are in older areas. However, while there is quite a bit of personal property crime it isn't any riskier than other sprawling small cities that have a large income disparities. Some of the least expensive housing will be in the least desireable areas...same as anywhere else. Some of the least expensive is near the colleges. Many of these older homes are rented to students. And if you live in those areas, you live in party central...same as any other college town.

However, housing prices here DO NOT APPRECIATE like they do/did in California. You can live in a house for years and it will not change price by any significant amount. "Fixing up" a house doesn't change the square footage so you have to be very careful where you spend the money if you plan on renting it out. Housing prices move much much slower here than on either coast (which is a good thing when they are going down).

Where is this "sight unseen" property located? If it's on the south side
of town your "probably" okay. If it's on the north or north central side,
you could end up in either a good or a bad neighborhood.

Springfield is a nice small city, but VERY different than So. Cal. Some people
love it, some don't find it suitable to their needs....I would really not buy something, however, till you figure out which category you fall into.