When looking for new residential or commercial investment properties, there are plenty of standard factors to consider, but you also need to consider the police presence in the area.
There are two general types of police presence: officers who simply patrol areas to stay visible and catch the occasional speeder, and officers who get dispatched to a location in response to a 911 call. The latter is what you should be concerned about.
Police presence can actually make residents feel more agitated, and can lead to violent shootings targeting anyone around, including the cops trying to do their jobs. Organizations like the National Police Association (NPA) work hard to restore the relationship between communities and law enforcement, but many people still don’t like police officers, and if that’s how a neighborhood feels, you don’t want to buy property in that area.
Locations with frequent police response are not usually good areas, and if you’re considering purchasing a property that gets a lot of negative, reactive action from law enforcement, you may want to walk away from the deal.
Police presence can indicate gang activity
If the police are always getting called to the area, it could be a sign of gang activity. You’d likely need to park somewhere and observe the comings and goings of neighbors to know if this is truly a possibility.
If you’re looking at crime rates and dispatch logs to see how often police respond to the neighborhood, that isn’t enough to make a determination. However, visuals can give you a good clue, especially if you see people wearing typical gang attire, and you know how to spot gang-affiliated tattoos.
While some people don’t have a problem with owning rental property in gang territory, it’s not a wise investment for several reasons:
· You might have trouble getting contractors to fix problems with the house if they don’t feel safe.
· You might not want to fix anything if you feel threatened in the neighborhood.
· It’s possible you could get caught in the middle of a fight and get hurt.
· The damage to your property could be extensive.
· Gang activity tends to lower property values.
There are plenty of other properties out there, so if you suspect gang activity in the neighborhood, don’t hesitate to walk away.
Heavy police presence can signal a drug problem
Sometimes police are called to an area regularly because of drugs. Unfortunately, some drug problems also come with violence, even if it’s not gang-related. Methamphetamines are particularly problematic because people who use meth tend to steal to pay for their drug habit, including cars and other machinery they dismantle and sell as parts. So not only will you have a neighborhood prone to burglary and theft, but the meth users will continuously collect junk.
Even if you don’t tell your tenants about the burglary issues, buying a property in an area with a meth problem could make your property hard to rent when potential tenants notice junk piling up in people’s yards.
You’ll struggle to keep tenants
Nobody wants to hear sirens late at night or see flashing lights coming through their windows on a regular basis. People want to be left undisturbed so they can unwind after work, have a nice dinner, watch television, and go to bed. The constant presence of police is a disruption to their lives and that can put some people on edge.
You’ll have a hard time keeping your tenants if they move in only to discover how annoying it is to be disturbed by the police responding to some type of disturbance. You can’t even make up for that by lowering the rent.
Areas where police have been defunded are even worse
On the flip side, neighborhoods that have had their police force defunded make even worse investments. If you remember when protestors in the CHOP zone in Seattle were left alone, it resulted in massive property destruction and even murder before it was broken up. Business owners were afraid to open shop, and residents wouldn’t come out of their houses. Wherever police are unavailable to respond to serious crimes, you can expect home values to drop.
Target good neighborhoods
This should be an obvious point, but targeting good neighborhoods is a better investment strategy than trying to get a good deal on properties in bad areas. No matter how good a deal may seem, if you buy investment property in the wrong area, it won’t work out well in the end.
