Yep. First house we bought over in the state capital was a small decent duplex in an older 'white flight' neighborhood. This means as the elderly population in the neighborhood died off the absentee heirs rented to whoever because near nobody would buy there. I think the Black Panthers shooting a cop in a siege of their site gave the whole neighborhood a bad name, but that had been the only scary incident in the neighborhood's history. Population was mostly elderly white owners, maybe 10% younger, qualified black owners, 10% poorer black and white renters. Anyhow we were poor. We applied our life savings of $1,000 and a month's sweat equity to qualify for a FHA 3% down loan, and bought it for $15,000. We made the right choice, rent from the other side of the duplex covered all our housing cost and that was the beginning of 40 years putting part of our paychecks into accumulating savings and investments. And the neighborhood wasn't scary. Our black and white new neighbors who owned, stopped by to say our purchase was a good sign the decline of property values had turned around and now their property values would hopefully turn up. Ok, we bought it for $15,000 during a time that was tense nationally, but not in our little neighborhood. I see that duplex is presently on the market, listed at $298,000. Zillow's rough estimate of value based on comparables is $387,000. Yes, California seems to come back.
