Thinking about buying property in tulsa (Sapulpa, Turley: real estate, cheap apartments, foreclosed) - Oklahoma (OK) - City-Data Forum

raditech · 10-07-2007, 04:27 PM

I have heard that crime is high in the north part of tulsa. I am thinking of buying a home near the River West Festival Park. It is also near the Sun Refinery plant. I have only been to Tulsa once and I do not remember this part of town. Can someone tell me if this area is high in crime? Any info would be great!

scaramedic · 10-07-2007, 08:22 PM

To be brutally honest, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my car parked for 10 minutes in that neighborhood. Lots of low rent apartments and a couple of full blown projects. There are much better neighborhoods than that area. Try the areas around TU, Peoria, Lewis, etc.

Jammie · 10-08-2007, 11:11 AM

74136 would be the area of my choice in Tulsa. OR, I believe 74105 may be a nice area, too. Just my personal opinion though and I'm not familiar enough with Tulsa to know the different areas well.

Goodpasture · 10-08-2007, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raditech

I have heard that crime is high in the north part of tulsa. I am thinking of buying a home near the River West Festival Park. It is also near the Sun Refinery plant.

Crime is higher in North Tulsa than most any other part of Tulsa. River West Festival Park and the Sun Refinery are not part of North Tulsa, though. On the west side of the river, the Red Fork area is going through renovation and offers some magnificent investment opportunities. Berryhill is upscale and thriving. Oakhurst is as close as you will get to a slum in Tulsa, but I don't think the crime level is all that bad....it's just poor. Carbondale is predominately older (post WWII housing) but very pleasant. There is a lot of pride in west Tulsa, and you will find it a nice place to live.

Quote:

Originally Posted by raditech

I have only been to Tulsa once and I do not remember this part of town. Can someone tell me if this area is high in crime? Any info would be great!

You should take a look at the police website and judge the crime levels for yourself. No place is immune to crime.

raditech · 10-08-2007, 02:53 PM

Thanks for info. Regarding the post about projects in this area, can you tell me where or the name of the apartments? I have researched on the internet and cannot find it. Thanks!

scaramedic · 10-08-2007, 05:57 PM

Brightwater, 2202 S Phoenix Ave

Lafortune Towers: 1725 Southwest Blvd

are both income supplement housing. God those addresses bring back memories.

MissPam · 12-31-2010, 11:44 PM

I personally have lived in Oakhurst for 55 years... I have had very few problems in this neighborhood, and the bad wrap comes from the drug use issues. There are alot of people who don't care about the way their house or yard looks, but people like me who have lived here and saw what it used to be like do care! There is a HUGE difference between POOR and TRASHY! My husband and my house is paid for and we have lived in this particular house for 42 years. Its actually one of the nicest houses houses in this neighborhood. So Oakhurst is not BAD it's just that most people don't care how they present themselves or their house.

Goodpasture · 01-01-2011, 08:47 AM

I am not taking anything away from the people of Oakhurst, but you have to admit there are a lot of people in that area that do not have any pride at all. You not only have trashy people in the area you have a lot of really poor people. Unfortunately that seems to go hand in hand.....at least in semi urban areas......but you are right in that there are some very nice houses there. But I question the wisdom of investing in that area at this time. Because of it's proximity to Tulsa and the turnpike and the current price of property there it has tremendous development potential. Whether or not it is residential in the future is debatable. It could easily become more industrialized. One of the elements that future developers are going to have to deal with are the number of auto salvages there. Not that a salvage is hard to surface clean, but the years of oil and antifreeze dripping into the soil has created an environmental hazard that could probably be better addressed through industrial development rather than residential redevelopment. I wish I were young enough that I could start investing there, but I think it will be 50 or more years before anything significant is done.......I won't be around that long. Unfortunately the focus of Tulsa redevelopment is in far north Tulsa.....Sperry, Turley, etc,......that area between Tulsa and Sapulpa seems to be more of a neglected no mans land although I think the annexation by Sapulpa will prove to be beneficial.

It is going to be interesting to see how things develop there.

benjamindees · 02-15-2011, 03:41 PM

I grew up mostly in South Tulsa (74136). I've lived both near TU and near Oakhurst.

First of all, investing in North Tulsa has been a running joke for several decades now. It's been the focus of redevelopment for the last 40 years. It has gone absolutely nowhere and probably won't ever go anywhere for several reasons, over-speculation being one of them. Turley and some of the more rural areas are not bad, just poor. And they are up against Osage Co where development is verboten so not much room for growth there. The rest of North Tulsa can't even maintain grocery stores because they can't afford the armed guards required. So, yeah even though there is lots of foreclosed subprime real estate in North Tulsa, your tax dollars are likely being used to keep prices above fair market value (little or nothing) so that they can be occupied by vagrant squatters instead of developed by investors.

Yes, Oakhurst is poor but from what I can tell that's because most of it is part of a gerrymandered fire district that includes fireworks warehouses, two refineries, a rail yard, small industry, lots of pasture and forest acreage and (for some reason gee I don't know why) a high proportion of fire-bugs, outright arsonists, meth producers, and militia who like to blow things up. Until recently there was just a small volunteer fire department covering all of that and, though most people liked it just fine, it didn't make for a good place to invest.

That said, I've seen the least crime in Oakhurst of any area in Tulsa. I attribute that solely to the relatively low population density and almost complete lack of government. People 1) have big yards, 2) fences 3) dogs 4) and guns. All annexation can add to that is some annoying speed traps and taxes, so most reject it. Realtors smell blood in the water though, and little banks are popping up to try to buy up what they can. But I doubt they will make much inroads with the amount of property that has been held for multiple generations and is completely paid-off. It's similar to the rural parts of North Tulsa but imho much more resilient to the kinds of crap used to push the urban development scam (eminent domain for public 'services', bankers' debt traps, petty criminals and pawn shops, corrupt law enforcement, and pointless planning meetings for busy-body hausfraus to set the standard height of the grass in everyone's yards).

South Tulsa is obviously one of the nicest parts of town, but there is a fair share of petty crime there. Lots of apartments interspersed with housing additions and not many retirees around. People are busy working 9-5, bored teenagers everywhere, so it's easy for thieves to steal stuff.

Don't get me started on the area around TU. It's a horrible mixture of oblivious hipsters in single-family houses and tiny cheap apartments filled with illegal immigrants. Basically it's the perfect environment for criminals. Prostitutes and homeless crack heads walk the streets 24 hours a day. The police are completely outnumbered so they just harass everyone indiscriminately. It's a hellhole. TU built an iron fence around the campus for a reason.

Ecovlke · 02-15-2011, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raditech

I have heard that crime is high in the north part of tulsa. I am thinking of buying a home near the River West Festival Park. It is also near the Sun Refinery plant. I have only been to Tulsa once and I do not remember this part of town. Can someone tell me if this area is high in crime? Any info would be great!

Hey, raditech! If it's a house, it's probably not that bad, but as someone said, there are two urban housing apartment complexes right in that area. I know Brightwater is rough. There are better choices in that vicinity.

Are you planning on living in the property?

I live near Newblock Park and I can tell you, regardless of what anyone says, our neighborhood has every walk of life. Newblock Park is near the refinery, but we're west of the downtown post office by less than a mile. I grew up in that hood and it's hit and miss as far as aesthetics. If you want everything very nice this isn't the place. However; we have attornies, a pediatrician, and all kinds of people who live in that area. I've never, not even once, had my house burglarized, or my vehicles broken into, and I know some people are very nervous about the area, but I've never had a problem with safety.