This is another in an occasional series of profiles of DBNR Investments customers. Click here for more.

Who knows why people end up living in the wrong part of town? Maybe they’ve just finished picking up the pieces of a long, financially debilitating family illness. Maybe a divorce diminished their resources. Maybe they were laid off and had to move to economize. It doesn’t matter. It happens.

I postulate this because I don’t know how DBNR prospect Kurt and his family ended up in the wrong part of Indianapolis. All I know is that he lives in a downtrodden apartment house there with his wife and two sons. It’s not a safe place. He’s called the police multiple times about drug dealing and prostitution he’s seen there. He’s almost been mugged a couple of times. And it seems to be getting worse. He’s installed deadbolts and other security devices, at his own expense.

The apartment owner is no help, but worse, neither are the police. They’re actually tired of him calling them. They’ve come right out and said that they can’t keep sending out patrol cars about threatening situations, rather than actual crimes. They’ve gone so far as suggested that he move.

As it happens, on his way to work as a scheduler for a construction company, Kurt passes by one of the properties we own. As it also happens, Kurt’s done more in construction than just work as a scheduler. He’s built houses from the ground up.

He’s also just the kind of person we like to work with. When he called, I asked him to send copies of a pay statement and his driver’s license so I could confirm he was who he said he was. I briefed him on how our process works, and it was clear that he’s an intelligent guy with a good income, but not a lot of savings. I told him to go by the house to see whether it suited him. Other people had gone to look at it and we’d never heard from them again, so I was interested to hear what someone with Kurt’s background would report.

He did indeed call back. As it turns out, while Kurt seems reliable, the house doesn’t. He could only get into the kitchen and one bedroom, because parts of the roof have fallen in, and some of the walls have disconnected from the ceiling. The house was buckled in the middle and the floors creaked with every step. He said it was in horrible shape, and it would take a year and at least $40,000 that he didn’t have to get it in shape.

We’d encountered problems like this before, so I got out a map. Sure enough, the property was within a half-mile of the Ohio River. I’m pretty confident that at some point in the past, the property flooded, and the foundation has rotted.

The only other property we have in the Indianapolis area was too far from Kurt’s work. (This is the downside to having properties spread randomly across the country; we’re not competing with ourselves by selling distressed properties, but we also don’t have a lot of inventory to offer an interested prospect.)

Is that the end of the story? No siree. DBNR’s goal is not just to make a profit; it’s to help people like Kurt who want to get out of bad neighborhoods and get into their own homes. I know several wholesalers who have properties in that area, and I’m going to see if I can find someone who can match him with a property. DBNR may not make any money off of Kurt, but he will help us fulfill part of our mission.

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