The Best and Worst Neighborhoods to Invest in Indianapolis

Welcome back to another episode of the Roots Podcast. I'm Max Moore joined by my co-host Tyler Lingal and today we have another mini episode boys only edition. We're going to be diving into what neighborhoods we personally are betting on and investing in in Indianapolis. Uh 2025 update kind of where we're leaning towards. Curious what is uh we're not going to go best. What's the worst in Indie right now? Oh man, you threw me through a curveball. worse neighborhood to invest in Indie. Yeah. Uh wow, just throwing shade. Uh please hold me harmless for uh steering people away from this. Uh consulting my legal adviserss, but uh I wouldn't probably be investing in Mars Hill. Yeah, huge houses first and foremost. So anything that needs to be fixed, there's a ton of square feet for the lower uh rental grade value ratio. Like that actually is why it has nothing to do with demographic. It has everything to do with the size and weight of repairs. I I agree with that. I I think they're just money pits and I don't think the appreciation is going to be good and I don't think there's a lot of commercial investment there. Yeah. There's not a lot going up. Yeah. And to the right. I think one that is way overrated and way overtalked about for me right now. Um I push more towards like I hate to say like an Anderson. A lot of people are investing in Anderson currently and I'm scared what that Ripple has because you can rent them for 1,500 and buy it for 100. I know. I know. And that's why people are going there. And like I don't know what infrastructure it has to push and pump. Yeah. I think it's the bet on the Hamilton County overflow and the workforce. That's all that is. And the pull to Lebanon is what makes me worried because locationwise they're kind of like all sandwiched and it's the overflow. Yeah, I feel like Lebanon is going to 20x. Mhm. And it'll devalue the pump that's happening. That's just like something that I feel when I drive the streets. I'm just like curious on where I have not spent any time in Anderson ever. Oh, fair. So, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Anderson. I'm not going to weigh in. I am totally going by other people smarter than me that do invest in Anderson, and I would not disagree. I think it is neutral, if not overrated. Yeah. Uh I would rather be paying a little bit extra to get on the other side of North Indie. And honestly, Cooko, I would legitimately rather be paying Coco is more in the line of development in my opinion than Anderson. Yes, the line of development is not going towards Anderson. It's going straight north and west, right, to Lebanon. So, I'd be going to Cooko. Cooko, I think, is a good bet. I don't know where the microchip facility is. All I know is we know guys that own motel. Guy used on the podcast. Phenomenal episode about investing in motel. He has people lining up to buy to to rent these medium-term uh motel in in Cookamo. And I work force housing. I've heard that there's just not enough housing there from people who live there. They're saying it's very competitive to buy a home in Cooko, which is like what? When in my life has have people even been talking about this small town about an hour north of India like not really ever. Okay, let's just say you're we have a house hacker pre-approved 300 to 400. Let's just say that they have a good job, right? Maybe they're a medical resident. They're going to do a physician's loan maybe and they're they're pre-approved right up there. They can do a duplex. They want to do a duplex. They want to get a nice duplex. This is an avatar that you'll see often. Maybe the person listening is one of these people. Yeah. Where would where should they be looking? I'm trying to get on the This isn't Canad King, but like the outskirts of Canadian King. Uh Monon Yard. Is that what Yeah, like Monon Yard. So like near I don't even know if it's technically Monard, but near provider coffee near the new uh Pulk Stables Co-hatch location. I think Pocket is so it's just you have overflow from Right. And and you have uh you have a commercially zoned corridor, one of the largest Indian on 16th Street. Y that honestly has not really developed as to what it could be, right? Uh you have Pulk Stables and a co-working space. So you have the three stools of work, live, play. We have work coming in harder now than ever before. Uh I think the lessonly building used to be there. I'm not sure if they're still there, but like you you have the work budding. Kind of have a play. There's like a Greek pizza there and like some other places. Some of them have not even stayed in business, but you kind of have that and you're having the the live like come out, but it's just like it's the people that are venturing into there. It's not like lines of people lining up to live there yet. Yeah. Yet keyword it will be. And I think that 300 becomes 400 very quickly uh in that area, which is the the challenge. But like to me, that's a safe place that I could sleep at night in a duplex. Uh, I'll p it back to you. Where's the better place that I'm not seeing? That was going to that was on my short list of areas to bring up. I am always a uh fanatic die hard for Broadripple. Yeah. And we had a long conversation with uh Nate Spangle about how the commercial strip is struggling. Yes, Broadbable A is struggling commercially, crime wise, but residentially it is not. And that is a cycle that I think that commercial real estate is going to bounce back and and more businesses still want to be there. It's just like it's been hard ever since co for them to hit the amount of the lease and like those uh those those commercial real estate owners have uh a lot of debt and have to get that paid. And so it's just like the lease debt mismatch. Well, the hope is like rates drop, right? And they can refinance. Yeah. So like that's there's a uh bottleneck right now and that and we're going into deep into stuff I don't even know too much about but I'm just like speculating but I I mean that's what I'm seeing when I see empty storefronts on prime real estate. I'm like okay I think the business just couldn't afford the the lease. Yeah absolutely and that's what's happening and then you when you have gunshots go off one night and they their their sales drop 20%. It's just difficult. So that's that's temporary I think. But back to the question you asked which is residentially right I mean Broadripple is an appreciation machine it appreciates probably 5% annually a year right now right now and we're not in the most heyday of markets like if I looked back uh uh five years it's total annual appreciation it it's almost 10% a year but that's there were some years that are obviously some outliers there but it's probably appreciating ing uh double than you know a a near east side property and that's why I'm I'm kind trying to invest more in Broadbable. Uh so if someone can lock down a mortgage um and a payment a monthly payment fixed in Broadbable and make that math make sense monthtomonth which that is a challenge. Yeah, there those duplexes are not cheap. We're talking 400 plus most of the time unless it's something beat up and terrible. Uh that's a win. Yeah, I think so. And I think uh I know a lot of people who have gone that route um and have been able to build from there. I mean Nate's episode it was like it was just like snuck in there halfway through, right? Because we're talking about Indie Indie and then you know all of a sudden talking about house hacking and Broadripple and his story with that. Um, okay. I am an investor who is looking to acquire a single family as a long-term rental, but but I cannot spend logically over 200. Where are you sending me? Very common avatar for in uh investors both out of state and some locally that are getting off the ground. Right. I think like come on, you know, we're going to say Christian Park. Yeah. You know, we're going to say a little flower and I'm still going to say Christian Park and Little Flower. Right. Right? I mean, you have a stable population demographic. Uh, you have a working-class population. You have stable home prices that are that are slowly up, you know, softly up and to the right. The only one I would softly add is like Community North near Community North. Oh, huge. It gets lumped in with Irvington, right? Irvington's kind of right a gym, higher price per square foot there. It gets so lumped in that people in their zo descriptions like to say that it is Irvington, right? Right. occasionally get the person in Christian Park saying that uh that's bad. Yeah, it's a little different, but not the same place. Um, okay, last one. Very, very last one. What are you just most excited about in in Indiana as a whole that you think is going up and to the right? It's a good question. Um, I think we're talking about the west side, but not enough. Yeah, I think uh State Road 39 uh so from Lebanon down through Danville through to Planefield and airport and the logistics with three major interstates. It's a it's a big economic powerhouse. Yeah, that GDPwise uh and what the ramifications are on the housing there is going to be I think enormous. So I think like it's pretty hard to go wrong. But I think that's super investing in those areas. Macro, let's go like micro and specifically talk about Danville because that's where you're hinting at. Sure. In Danville right now, there is a place uh that feels very much like Avon when at least my parents were mobilizing into Avon and and planting roots there that if a young family plants roots in this small town uh that has a a strong center, it has a live work play within. It could have more work, but it has the the live and play for sure in community nature. Um I don't see just where the prices are at right now. Like look up Danville, Indiana. You guys are going to be shocked at the price. Um and I I don't see how it doesn't grow exponentially. Yeah. I almost don't want to talk about it because that's our play, right? Uh yeah, I it's number eight for housing starts in Indiana. Uh in terms of a town city in Indiana, it's number eight. I mean, you have a ton of you live in one. You bought one of the housing starts. So, there's that. You could speak to that better than I. Um, but I think that uh you know uh I'm not sure when this episode released, but my dad and I are uh LLC is under contract to buy a building and convert it to a restaurant in Danville. That is definitely strategic. That is also like just family being present there and ties there. But that is for sure strategic and like we just think they're they're going to need more quality places to eat and dine and I think you know uh it it has all the right things and with Lebanon what 20 30 minutes to the north a pretty easy drive there I mean that that meaningful very easy drive and people have even mentioned to me the new casino in terote relating to Danville I thought that was a stretch that is a stretch people are confusing that with like Danville Illinois and the casino in Danville Someone brought that up to me and I'm like that is a bit of a they told me you should you should fund a shuttle. They said that to me as an idea. I was like that may be the worst business. Was it my dad? Did my dad call you? Cuz I mean he could be the driver of the shuttle. Right. Right. The other thing I will mention at a high level since we're just uh talking about chopping it up on indie de indie plays to watch. I just met with someone that is a resident of Westfield who said they went to the um economic development meeting of Westfield and they have a developments along the Monon in Northwestfield and what they're doing with downtown Westfield which I say downtown because right now it's hardly a downtown. It has couple restaurants and like doesn't even remotely what they're playing there. It's much different than it used to be. It's it's growing. Oh, I mean Westfield is, I believe, number eight in terms of fastest growing communities in the nation. Oh, wow. And so they're planning a water park, a huge residential development. What is it too late? No, it's not too late for Westfield. The top end of Westfield is it's the next Carmel, right? It It's not even close to Caramel. And so it's the next Caramel and it's the caramel overflow for young people that can't afford caramel, right? And it won't stop. Yeah. And so there's a map up in our Brownsburg office of this is not Westfield, but it's Whitestown, which is kind of similar, too. I think Westfield's pushing way harder, but Whitestown should be mentioned. Whittown has to be mentioned. It's the more affordable. It's Yeah, it's the more affordable and young people moving there in droves. There's a picture and I had to ask like, hey, when did you guys print this? They have like the black and white with the just the maps of the roads. Whitest town on there has one main road, one up and down in like a circle of a neighborhood. And I know exactly what neighborhood it is. Whitest wasn't an if you look at the actual map now is neighbor neighbor all this development. It was just farmland. Yeah. I'm about to send AJ the picture so he can pop it up on there from the from the Whitestown wasn't a thing when we grew up. When we were kids it was nobody lived there. A couple farmers live there. We drive to Lafayette and I would say Fyet because it was funny to see on the sign which is Whitestown right there. You drive through fate to get to Whittown. Yeah. Shout out the in-laws. So, I mean, those are not house hackable, right? There's no duplexes in Whitesttown or or they're single family house hackable and more so that's like, hey, do I want to own land that's going to appreciate a lot? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, let's be honest, Hamilton County is is always going up and to the right and it will continue to be the fastest growing county in Indiana for a long time. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think uh betting on a neighborhood is huge. And it's just funny that we went straight out of the donut counties or went straight to the donut counties in our heads in the conversation because uh it's naturally where the nicer the commercial boom is. Right. Right. Right. And the smaller scale. Right. And it's one of those things where uh it's just two different uh types of people that are going to go to one or the other. And there's ways to make that work to build your wealth in either. Um, it just depends. Do you want the more traditional house hack duplex with more amenities, theaters, arts, culture, go downtown, right? Do you want the the pristine sidewalk and good school district? Yeah. Go to the suburbs. Right. Right. And that and that's why we would be available to talk through that. Right. And so get a trusted guide. uh and you know someone that can uh talk through these different scenarios with you. You shouldn't be using anybody else but a roots agent. Go to rootility. co/find agent. Yep.