ROOTS DEAL SHEET (7.01)

New here? Roots Realty is an Indianapolis-rooted team. We have helped 400+ people plant roots and build wealth right here, we run the Indy Street Sweep, and every week we hand 3,200+ investors the best deals in the city, underwritten on today's rents and today's rate, not hyped.

Roots Fam 🌿,

Most weeks we lead with deals. This week I want to start with what I took away from our last Coffee & Connect, because it is the whole reason we do any of this. Then the deals, the zip codes, and one last call before July 7. Let's go.

My biggest takeaway from our last Coffee & Connect

Last Wednesday, we packed the room with over 50 investors, agents, and entrepreneurs for our Coffee & Connect. Our guest, Mark Nottingham, studies housing for a living, and here is the part I have not been able to put down. From 2020 to 2024, the income you need to comfortably buy a home jumped about 80 percent while incomes rose just 23 percent. That gap quietly erased a whole generation of buyers, the average first-time buyer went from 33 in 2019 to over 40 today. That is not a blip, that is a system breaking.

Here is why I am handing this to investors. Indianapolis was, until very recently, the second most affordable of the 30 biggest metros in America, behind only Memphis, and we are losing that title fast. The only thing holding our prices down is high rates choking off demand, and the day they ease, all that sidelined demand comes roaring back and prices move. The fix our guest made the case for is not 500-unit towers, it is the missing middle: duplexes, townhomes, ADUs, lot splits, small infill, the boring beautiful stuff that, done well, lifts a neighborhood and the values around it. That is the exact lane we play in. My takeaway for you: Indy is still cheap, still growing, and still early, and that combination does not sit still. If you have been waiting for a sign, watch the window, not the rate.

Bummed you missed this one? Come to the next one live. Our Summer Real Estate Masterclass on August 6 is built around exactly this, how to actually do small-scale development here. That and the rest of what we have coming are at rootsrealty.co/events.

We do not feature every deal... This week our agent, Kyle Hoffman, flagged one that is worth a real look: two renovated rentals sitting side by side, offered together as one clean buy. Run the numbers and tell us what you think.

The bigger of the two and a full gut in 2023, new roof, electrical, PEX plumbing, water heater, kitchen, bath, and luxury vinyl plank throughout. Tenant in place, zero deferred maintenance.

Right next door, same 2023 reno scope, new roof, gutters, windows, electrical, PEX plumbing, water heater, kitchen, bath, flooring, fresh paint, and a full appliance package.

Straight talk, the way we always give it to you: at $285,000 with 25 percent down, the pair runs about breakeven on paper. This is not a day-one cash-flow play. What you are buying is condition and convenience, two fully renovated homes with nothing to fix, side by side, one closing, in a part of the city that is still early. Put more down or self-manage and it tips positive, and you are holding for the long game either way. Run your own numbers below and tell us what you think.

All Roots listings in one click

We always have a stack of investor-ready listings live with photos right now, from bite-size rentals up to commercial. Rather than list them all, browse the current board in one click.

Reader win

An investor on this list just closed their first Indy rental this month. Cheyenne N. landed a place in the Mapleton-Fall Creek corridor for $158,500. First deal, real keys, and the kind of entry point that still exists here and almost nowhere else. It happens every single week, and that is the entire point of this thing.

Where we actually buy in Indy (straight from our newest video)

We just dropped a new one on the channel where we named names: the Indy zip codes we buy, the ones we avoid, and the one neighborhood we refuse to touch no matter how cheap it gets. Start here.

The short version, so you leave with something:

• Cash flow: 46201, the near-east core, is where the rent-to-price math actually holds up.

• Hidden gems we would buy today: Eagledale and Irvington. Underrated, still affordable, real renter demand.

• The long game (appreciation): Broad Ripple, the Butler area, and the Meridian corridor, the parts of the city everyone actually wants to live in.

• The hard pass: Mars Hill and Martindale-Brightwood.

The real lesson: zip codes lie, and we do not buy zip codes, we buy streets. Case in point, this week's featured pair sits on a Mars Hill block, the same Mars Hill in that hard-pass line. The blanket zip is a pass, but a specific renovated, tenanted block for the right buyer with the right horizon is a different conversation. Read streets, not zips, and come walk a few with us.

Two quick asks

• Want a rental that is already cash-flowing? Reply CASHFLOW and I will send the under-$200k Marion County rentals we are tracking.

• Buying your first rental and not sure where to start? Reply FIRST and I will walk you through your first deal, no pressure.

Upcoming events

• Indy Street Sweep, Tue July 7. 26 rally points across the city, going for 777. This is the big one.

• Summer Real Estate Masterclass, TBD - Aug 6th or 13th, 6pm, Guggman Haus Brewing.

• Coffee & Connect, next session this fall. Intimate morning, no pitch, real growth. Reply COFFEE for the list.

That is the week, Roots Fam. What I took from Coffee & Connect, the deals, where we actually buy, and one Tuesday in July where we take the whole city back together. Reply to anything in here, we read every single one.

Plant roots, build wealth.
Max

P.S. No joke this week, a real one. If you own a rental you have quietly outgrown, or a place you have wondered about selling, just hit reply with the address. We will tell you what it would actually bring today, no pitch, no pressure. Worst case, you find out you are sitting on more than you thought. (The euphemism hall of fame returns next week. "Flex space" still holds the belt.)