West Side Cincinnati Rentals: Westwood Streets and BRRR Math
$110,000 from a wholesaler, $21,000 of work, a $200,000 appraisal. Ben Austin on the West Side streets he won't cross, and why he buys every property with two exits so he can decide later whether to flip or hold.
Ben Austin bought a two-bedroom in Westwood this spring from a wholesaler for $110,000, with no inspection and no contingencies. He put $21,000 into it, and it appraised at $200,000. He could have flipped it for a $50,000 to $60,000 profit. He kept it as a rental. Austin buys every property with at least two exits, and after 16 years as a Cincinnati realtor he has specific streets he will and won't cross on the West Side.
About This Post
This analysis draws from a conversation with Ben Austin, a realtor with Keller Williams Advisors who leads the Austin Group. He also co-founded BAK Property Management. He owns about $3 million in single-family and multifamily rentals across Westwood, Clifton, Mount Washington, Reading and downtown, some of them furnished. Roughly half of his clients are investors, so he sees the West Side as both a buyer and an agent.
Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. The full episode also covers how he turned his downtown condo into a short-term rental that booked two months out within two weeks.
The Cincy REI Show publishes every Monday. New episodes cover neighborhood-level analysis, local investor strategies, and real deal stories from operators active in Greater Cincinnati.
Westwood, Bridgetown, Price Hill: Where a West Side Investor Draws the Lines
Austin's best buy-and-hold results have come from the C+ and B- neighborhoods on Cincinnati's West Side: Westwood, Cheviot, Bridgetown, Green Township and Delhi. Reading has also worked for him. Mount Washington, on the east side, has become hard to find deals in.
- Westwood is Cincinnati's largest neighborhood by both area and population, and the lines inside it matter. Austin uses Werk Road as his southern cutoff. Closer to Fairmount, the tenant base changes, and some Werk-adjacent blocks already feel like Fairmount even though the auditor lists them as Westwood. From there he follows Harrison Avenue north into Cheviot.
- His favorite pocket is bounded by Montana Avenue on the north, Werk Road on the south, Glenmore Avenue on the west, and Boudinot Avenue on the east. He owns three properties inside it. It is a quiet residential area within walking distance of the YMCA, the library, and the restaurants and bars near the Montana, Harrison, and Boudinot triangle. Single-family homes there rent for not much less than similar homes in many East Side neighborhoods.
- Bridgetown is open territory for Austin, and he is comfortable buying almost anywhere in it. The pocket around Euclid, Lawrence, and Childs rents well, sits near commercial corridors, and is in Oak Hills Schools. Host Slocomb Reed says the Oak Hills label is often what gets him to commit to a three-bedroom-plus single-family.
- Cleves and North Bend draw their own demand from the Three Rivers school district. Reed owns a 24-unit in Cleves and manages other properties there.
- Price Hill means a different tenant pool, with more wear and tear and higher turnover. Austin tells clients to require a much higher cap rate there to cover the extra carpet, counters, and paint.
- The Incline District is the exception in Price Hill. New builds, shops, Incline Public House, Primavista, a coffee shop, and a theater all sit near the view of downtown. Austin's comfort zone ends one or two blocks west of the view, where the walkability runs out.
Why West Side BRRR Math Got Tighter After 2022
When Austin started buying in Westwood, homes sold for under $100,000 and needed $10,000 to $20,000 of cosmetic work to rent. Three things have changed since then:
- Rates roughly doubled. His early rentals carry mortgages at 3.5% to 4.5%. DSCR loans now run about 7%, and conventional investment loans about 6% to 7.5%.
- Wholesale deals face their own competition. Within his Westwood-Cheviot buy box, few on-market listings make sense. Wholesalers blast deals to large buyer lists, so off-market deals now draw several competing offers.
- Prices haven't come back down. The market has slowed, but Austin hasn't seen values regress. Rents are plateauing, and each neighborhood has a ceiling above which tenants will simply move somewhere else.
Flips feel the rate change less, since Austin plans to be in and out in under three months. Long-term holds are harder to make work. He has widened his search in response and recently bought in Ludlow, Kentucky. His filter for any new area: the numbers work, and he would live there himself.
What's Working in Cincinnati
Buy with two exits. Austin wants every purchase to work as both a flip and a rental. That lets him commit before he knows which way he'll go. Reed puts it this way: the decision to buy is objective and the decision to sell is subjective. Buy when the numbers work, then decide after the rehab based on your finances, taxes and plans.
Austin's buy criteria:
- Cash flow of $500 a month or more after new debt service.
- All-in cost near 70% of ARV. The 70% rule is his starting point, and he will accept less spread when a single-family still has $50,000 to $70,000 of equity at completion.
- All-in around $150,000, valued at $250,000 to $300,000. He sees that range as very doable in Westwood and Bridgetown. Better school districts push values higher.
The ARV band where both exits work. Reed and Austin agree the sweet spot for Greater Cincinnati single-family is an ARV in the $200,000s, with a purchase price under $200,000.
- Under $150,000: question whether you want to own in that location longer than it takes to flip.
- $150,000 to $200,000: some two-bedrooms cash flow and still leave room for a flip profit.
- Above $300,000 to $350,000: single-family rents rarely cover the debt, DSCR lenders cut leverage, and the tenant pool shrinks. Sell those.
The Clifton BRRR that shows the model. Austin bought a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath home on Warner Street, between Ravine and Fairview in CUF, for $144,000. He put about $32,000 into it. Following the usual CUF shotgun layout, the dining room became the living room, and the old living room became a bedroom. It appraised at $300,000. He refinanced and pulled out about $60,000. The new mortgage runs $1,550 a month, and it rents to students for $2,600, so it cash flows about $1,000 a month with roughly 30% equity still in it.
Handling city complaints. Cincinnati inspectors respond quickly to neighbor calls to 311. Austin has gotten notices over a leaning fence and over a trash can at the end of his own driveway, and the trash can citation was waived.
- Check the date on the notice. His fence notice was dated August 3 and arrived August 13, which cut his response window by 10 days.
- Respond by email. A timestamp proves you acted before the deadline.
- Escalate politely when an inspector goes quiet. Reed calls the building department's main line and asks for the supervisor on duty so a missed follow-up doesn't turn into a fine.
- Stay friendly. Both hosts say courtesy with inspectors goes further than frustration.
What doesn't work: walking away from a good deal over $5,000 or $6,000. Deal flow is too competitive now to be that picky, and both Reed and Austin can name Westwood houses they passed on and wish they owned.
Lessons From the Field: A $110,000 Westwood Wholesale Deal With Bats in the Attic
Austin bought a two-bedroom on Daytona Avenue in Westwood, one block outside his favorite pocket, through a wholesaler for $110,000. He waived inspection and contingencies because the numbers worked as either a flip or a rental.
The plan was cosmetic: new cabinets, a bathroom refresh, floors and paint. The kitchen went in, and the finish work wasn't up to his standard, so the crew tore it out and rebuilt it. They also finished the basement area around an existing toilet so it could be used as living space, and replaced the garage doors and openers.
The tenant signed before the rehab was even done. Then bats showed up in the attic in July. Bats are a protected species, and removal is restricted during their maternity season. Several pest companies wouldn't take the job. The one that did had to wait until August. It then sealed the openings, installed one-way exclusion devices so the bats could leave but not return, and cleaned the attic. Reed has had bats loose inside occupied units, where the only legal response during that season is to seal the holes and open the windows.
Then a neighbor reported the leaning fence to the city.
Final numbers: $110,000 purchase plus $21,000 of work, for $131,000 all-in, against a $200,000 appraisal. It rents for $1,500, and market rent is $1,700 to $1,800.
- Buying right absorbs surprises. A rebuilt kitchen, a bat exclusion, and a code notice still left $69,000 of equity.
- Waiving inspection means pricing in the unknown. Keep a contingency in the rehab budget.
- Know the wildlife rules before you need them. Bat removal is time-restricted, and the delay has to be explained to a tenant already living there.
- Signing a tenant early costs rent. Leasing before the rehab was finished locked in $200 to $300 a month below market.
- Two exits keep options open. The same house works as a $50,000 to $60,000 flip or a long-term hold.
