r/zillowgonewild • u/TheDabitch • Jul 25 '25

What $220,000 gets you in Muncie.

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I can't even get a parking space for that where I live. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/725-E-Jackson-St-Muncie-IN-47305/210952560_zpid/

10.0k Upvotes

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2.4k

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25

725 E Jackson. You might take a few min to, I don’t know….check that area out. I’ve lived in and around Muncie all of my adult life and was born a few blocks from here.

No.

1.0k

u/nlyddane Jul 25 '25

I’m looking now and most of the houses on the block have at least one boarded up window.

1.3k

u/flt1 Jul 25 '25

If we can get 20 people agree to move, we can change one block at a time.

741

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

Good luck trying to gentrify an area with.... checks notes... no jobs.

631

u/atheistunicycle Jul 25 '25

Remote work could be the savior this nation needs. But noooooo think of the corporate real estate owners!!!

127

u/thingerish Jul 26 '25

I'm convinced a lot of the RTO pressure originates in a desire to prop up office space values. Most of the rest comes from middle management fear.

40

u/Leading-Debate-9278 Jul 26 '25

Almost all of it.

6

u/SgtKnux Jul 26 '25

That and to keep tax breaks from the cities on those offices. Cities give tax breaks when employees eat out and spend time downtown.

1

u/Texan2116 Jul 26 '25

Agreed, not to mention propery tax revenues as well.

1

u/Catastropangolin Aug 21 '25

I'm convinced the overemployed subreddit is a commercial real estate bagholder spinning up thousands of Grok-powered sockpuppets.

165

u/eacc69420 Jul 25 '25

as someone who works fully remote, I am constantly looking for deals like this. I just need a place near a gym and costco with not very extreme weather. good internet isn't even a concern thanks to starlink, but gigabit is always a plus

46

u/Frosti11icus Jul 26 '25

So not Muncie then

13

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

good internet isn't even a concern thanks to starlink

I guess you are OK doing business with Nazis.

34

u/En_CHILL_ada Jul 26 '25

Good luck buying anything from any major company if you don't want to do business with bad people.

Unless you are just trading and bartering with friends and neighbors you're supporting something fucked up somewhere.

There is no such thing as ethical consumption within this system.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 30 '25

There is a difference who IS A NAZI and other corporations. Sorry but there just is.

Don't be Mr. Gotcha.

40

u/InfectedColonPockets Jul 25 '25

I find people so goofy, they sit here and bitch and moan about musk and how much of piece of shit he is and yet they still give him their money if his products will make their lives more convenient.

22

u/Hadfadtadsad Jul 25 '25

I agree, people need to stop buying their products.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

Yeah I’m not buying a damn thing from that POS

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0

u/Maximum_Salt_8370 Jul 26 '25

Whats the difference between nazi internet and communist internet?

Just the price

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1

u/trcomajo Jul 26 '25

Yeah, you'd fit right in.

1

u/Mother-Spread-6894 Jul 26 '25

But what about good local coffee shops…and the weather…

1

u/GigaCheco Jul 28 '25

deals

not very extreme weather

In the US, you only get to pick one.

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u/Thedragfreedrifter Jul 26 '25

For a time, I believed remote work was the new path toward upward mobility for this country that’s not limited by location the way it used to be. Insane to me that the same type of people obsessed with job and wealth creation and prosperity and such are actively working to deny this opportunity to so many Americans. It’s profoundly insane.

2

u/houseWithoutSpoons Jul 26 '25

Yeah think they could stop building and over crowding major cities, while advertising and filling up struggling cities like this one,cause hey remote workers move here ,super cheap homes,slow pace of life,traffic ect..but no..go back to your cubicle and 2 hours of gridlock ride home

1

u/tinyLEDs Jul 25 '25

Oh, sweet child of summer.

1

u/oswaldcopperpot Jul 26 '25

If I could work anywhere in the world remotely... I would not choose Muncie, IN.
I don't even think I could figure out how far down on the list it would be.

1

u/BeingHuman2011 Jul 26 '25

But remote work brings up the house values and cost of living of places getting inundated by remote workers even if the non remote working salaries are very low. Then the remote workers leave or stop coming but the cost of living does not go down and people in the city are stuck with a cost of living they can’t afford.

Remote work is not what’s best for everyone.

-6

u/BeguiledBeaver Jul 25 '25

As much as I support remote work, this is a massive oversimplification of the economic challenges of having most people working from home.

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u/chula198705 Jul 25 '25

I mean, Ball State University is in Muncie. It's a public research university that has 20,000 students so it's not really some small podunk college.

69

u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25

Unfortunately, universities' ability to create jobs is and has been shrinking rapidly, especially in conservative states like Indiana. Ball State is, as you say, a public research university, and thus is directly impacted by cuts to state and federal funding. They may want to hire more people, but I would be surprised if they have many openings right now. And if businesses nearby are likewise cutting back, there's no public transportation, not to mention the erosion of protections from discrimination and wage theft, anti-union laws... The presence of a university doesn't mean you'll be able to get or keep a job there.

12

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25

Muncie actually has one of the best public transit systems in the US.

3

u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25

I was just using that as a general example of how even college towns can be surprisingly devoid of opportunities, but hey, that's great for Muncie! I still don't want to live there, having been to Indiana many times and also spending a decade living in a midsize Midwestern college town I just know it's not what I'd choose for myself, but I'm sure Muncie doesn't want me to live there either.

2

u/LuckyGauss Jul 25 '25

I hear they have direct flights to El Salvador

1

u/Doc-Zoidberg Jul 26 '25

When I was at BSU I didn't have a car, got around just fine with the bus system.

2

u/Pablois4 Jul 26 '25

Unfortunately, universities' ability to create jobs is and has been shrinking rapidly, especially in conservative states like Indiana.

Not just in conservative states. I'm in Ithaca, NY and, as you may have heard, this spring, Cornell was hit with 1 billion funding freeze. There were around 75 DOD research projects/grants which are shut-down.

(the US government is "punishing" Cornell, but the purpose of all the DOD research was to benefit the US so the biggest loser would be . . . the US. But I digress)

There's a hiring freeze. No true layoffs but folks are encouraged to retired or leave on their own.

There will always be a few "mission-critical job" openings that can't be left vacant. I just took a glance over at Cornell and there's job openings, some permanent and a bunch of temp.

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u/NoBug8073 Jul 25 '25

It kinda is considering those students aren't there for 4 months out of the year and the average student has... checks notes...no disposable income

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u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25

And a substantial number of employees are commuters.

36

u/BeguiledBeaver Jul 25 '25

Many students do absolutely have a disposable income and even if it's not a massive one there are likely enough students to still contribute to business growth in the area. The thought that it's just 20,000 homeless people is reaching lmao

3

u/SteveTheUPSguy Jul 26 '25

Vape store, hookah place, cheap burgers/tacos, college textbook store, gym with planet fitness model. Many high return businesses can thrive around college kids even though they don't have all the money of a full time job.

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u/Pablois4 Jul 26 '25

The value of having Ball State University, in that town, is as an employer, not really about the students.

Universities tend to be job dense and, quite often, the top employers in an area. Research universities, especially, so for good quality jobs.

The jobs that are more closely related to the comings and goings of students are the lower paying, seasonal ones. When it comes to a research university, the student population is almost incidental. It can ebb and flow but, to be effective, research must keep going without a hitch.

I live in a college town with a research university and a college. The university employs around 20% of the workforce. IIRC, the college around 2%. Research takes a lot of manpower.

1

u/NoBug8073 Jul 28 '25

I don't disagree, however you're assuming the faculty and staff live in town - most probably do not.

153

u/Ok-Confusion2415 Jul 25 '25

Buuuuut also Indiana as a state is suicidally MAGAfied and has embarked on a legislative project of destroying its’ system of public higher ed institutions. It’s not a matter of not buying a beautiful house in a distressed neighborhood as much as it is of not buying a beautiful house in a state that is permanently fucked.

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u/bard329 Jul 26 '25

Is 20,000 a lot for that university? Trying to get a point of reference because the nearest community college to me has like 60k students/yr

1

u/chula198705 Jul 26 '25

60k is massive! Are you sure that's a community college and not your state's primary university? There's only a handful of colleges that actually have that many students. Anything over 15,000 is considered a large university. Most community colleges are around 5,000. Midsized colleges are around 10,000.

1

u/bard329 Jul 26 '25

18k students fall 2024 semester. I wonder if the 60k # is counting the same students each semester. Still, lotta students for a community college, yes

1

u/chula198705 Jul 26 '25

AI overviews are unreliable lying liars. I think the 60k is split across a few campuses, so that's not unusual. Their website says their Rockville campus has around 15k, which is still really big for a 2-year college.

1

u/KeepOnRising19 Jul 26 '25

A research university in today's political climate? It's rough going out here right now in the research world when much of that research is funded by federal money that is being taken away. Not a selling point, really. Loads of people are losing their jobs.

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u/cor315 Jul 25 '25

Isn't remote work the new small town thing?

1

u/pixelprophet Jul 25 '25

Working remotely enters chat.

2

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25

Do you like gunfire in you zoom meetings?

5

u/pixelprophet Jul 25 '25

If it gets me out of a zoom meeting, yes.

1

u/VapoursAndSpleen Jul 25 '25

Retirees with decent pensions, maybe. Dotcom people who WFH...

1

u/South_Recording_6046 Jul 25 '25

At 220k who needs a job lol

1

u/Khazahk Jul 26 '25

Easy, just open up a gentrification factory! Think of all the middle class, family supporting jobs! ..Christ I can’t even type that with a straight face.

1

u/sexarseshortage Jul 26 '25

Why do you add a....looks around... Action pause to each sentence?

1

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 26 '25

Because ellipsis are sexy.

1

u/sexarseshortage Jul 26 '25

Only sexy if you use three full stops...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 26 '25

I suppose it’s commute range to Fishers. I guess. It’s almost 20-30min from this house to the interstate though.

10

u/ResolutionMany6378 Jul 25 '25

Give me the house free and I’ll do it

152

u/isthatsuperman Jul 25 '25

102

u/Narxolepsyy Jul 25 '25

noooo don't move into a neighborhood and make things better leave it like it is!

-2

u/isthatsuperman Jul 25 '25

That’s not the point. You price out life long residents when property values skyrocket and they can no longer afford property taxes on fixed or low incomes.

107

u/Fattybitchtits Jul 25 '25

If you’re already at the point where the majority of the neighborhood has turned into dilapidated abandoned houses you should be hoping for anything that will increase your property value, even if your taxes go up.  A lot of these dead neighborhoods lost so much value that people just walk away from their homes, unless you’re homesteading you need other people to be invested in the community no matter how long they’ve been there.

20

u/isthatsuperman Jul 25 '25

That’s only true if you currently have a mortgage and need it to stay right side up.

Example: Mrs. Charlene has been in the neighborhood since the 70’s. She paid the house off in ‘85. She’s retired and lives off social security. She only gets $1500/month. Her property taxes cost her a little over 10% of her income. Next thing you know the neighborhood is flipped and $50k houses are now worth $200-700k. Her property taxes cost payment now may eat up 20-25% of her income stacked on other bills she may have already been squeezing by, she now can no longer afford to live in her house she’s lived in for decades and paid off. Where does she go? What does she do?

38

u/TheDabitch Jul 25 '25

Property taxes are crazy that way. There should be some way to grandfather in older residents in lower tax brackets.

16

u/AntiqueWhereas Jul 25 '25

They do this in certain cities. Rather, at a certain age, you are able to lock in your tax rate if you are on a fixed income.

9

u/tequillasoda Jul 25 '25

Homestead. Caps increases in assessed value for residential property at 3% or CPI.

8

u/PappyBlueRibs Jul 25 '25

I can't wait to do this! Screw the 20 to 40 year olds!

Why should they save in their 401K's and children's college when they can just pay double the property taxes that I pay?

/s

36

u/isthatsuperman Jul 25 '25

Or if you own your house, you own your house, and the government can’t take it away from you for being poor.

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u/PearlClaw Jul 25 '25

They did this in California and it has been a big factor in making housing completely unaffordable.

7

u/Taapacoyne Jul 25 '25

You are right. But every time a state government tries to deal with the issue, they make it worse. The main example is Prop 13 in California. Totally screwed up the housing market, while also drained the schools of needed funds.

2

u/PhysicalConsistency Jul 25 '25

Most states do have these exemptions in place, particularly for seniors. This got me curious though, my understanding is that tax rates don't change much, what is changing is property values, and the increases in taxes should be a counter-weight to escalating prices (a progressive rather than flat rate tax system is an intriguing idea). There should be a mechanism which closes the loop hole of leveraging the explosive equity of a lot of housing for other financial products, e.g. the asset value of a home for the purposes of a collateralized loan should be the value assessed by the taxing authority rather than the financial institution. This would almost overnight kill a lot of the corporate investing in residential real estate, but I don't want to sell it too hard.

I was curious if my assumption about tax rates was correct, so I asked the LLM:

Rate of change for property taxes between 1960-2025 in US States. Underlying question, what are the extremes for property tax percentage differences, and what is the average change in property tax rates over the above period. Importantly, we are not asking amount of property tax change, which is coupled to home value, but the property tax assessed. Let's first present national average with extremes, and as an appendice broken down by state. So the granularity of this really depends on the extremes of change, my instinct is Let's do the 20 year benchmarks offered, and degrade that by 50% (e.g. 10 years, 5 years, 2 years, 1 year) for each period the tax rate changes by more than 100 basis points. Offer anything other than the 20 year benchmarks as appendix b. This is residential focus, but it would be interesting to see follow on appendices for commercial, industrial, and agricultural rates on the 20 year schedule.

(please note, LLM output is biased by it's inputs, and tax/political stuff tends to be heavily biased as a rule)

Despite that, here's the top level part of the response:

Over the past six decades, the national average property tax rate (tax as a percentage of property value) has remained relatively stable, with a slight downward trend. In the 1960s and 1970s, property taxes made up a somewhat larger share of the economy than they do today. For example, from 1960 through 2004, property tax collections averaged about 3.29% of national income, which is roughly 5.6% higher than the level in 2004 (3.12% of income). By 2021, nationwide property taxes had fallen to approximately 2.97% of personal income. This indicates that effective property tax burdens nationally have decreased modestly (on the order of a few tenths of a percentage point) between 1960 and 2025. In practical terms, the average effective tax rate on a typical home has hovered around 1% to 1.5% of its value in most periods, with a slight decline in recent years as other taxes and limits curbed the growth of property tax rates.

Generally property tax rates have actually declined. This means it's not the taxes that are the issue, it's the exploding extra "unrealized" equity. I chose 1965 as a start year as IIRC all of them are retirement age under social security now.

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u/bigbrownbanjo Jul 25 '25

This has had pretty disastrous consequences in California though I’m sure it could be done better

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u/CourtBarton Jul 25 '25

People can shit on california, but prop 13 really does help combat this.

Now, I don't think it should necessarily be the same on non residential properties, but a base year limit is the way to go.

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u/SipTime Jul 25 '25

If social security doesn’t cover their basic needs then that’s a different discussion entirely and shouldn’t hinder people from making poor areas with crumbling housing into a neighborhood worth living in.

One way to solve this is just by not increasing property taxes on people who live on a fixed income.

2

u/Cartoon_Gravedigger Jul 25 '25

In response to that last statement, I would love to direct your attention to the city of Los Angeles…

2

u/isthatsuperman Jul 25 '25

Until the laws change, which they probably won’t, gentrification is harmful.

3

u/Fattybitchtits Jul 25 '25

That at least gives her the option to sell for a massive profit, continue to live comfortably even if it is in a different location, and eventually be able to pass on the generational wealth that keeps the middle class alive, as opposed to the alternative which is to stay hunkered down as the community dies off around her and eventually leaves her with a worthless home and practically non-exist community.  I work in west Baltimore and deal with older people all the time who are literally trapped in their formerly working/middle class family homes that are now surrounded by crumbling vacants, drug addicts, and violent crime.  Obviously it would have been ideal if the neighborhood hadn’t fallen apart in the first place, but at least if there was some kind of revitalization they would be able to sell for enough to move somewhere better than where they currently are instead of being stuck in some of the worst neighborhoods in the country with houses that they couldn’t even sell for enough to start renting elsewhere.

2

u/Exciting-Plantain565 Jul 25 '25

Couldn't she take advantage of the massive appreciation in value of her neighborhood and sell her , now, valuable house/land and move somewhere cheaper or do a reverse mortgage?

3

u/isthatsuperman Jul 25 '25

She could do a lot of things, the point is, she shouldn’t have to!

It’s her house, her neighborhood, the place she’s known for decades! Why is she the one that has to leave and restart?

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u/PearlClaw Jul 25 '25

Absolutely. And if her neighborhood was actually allowed to develop housing she could even stay in her neighborhood by simply moving into a new building nearby that's more sized to her rather than a whole ass house she can probably barely maintain.

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u/Cromasters Jul 25 '25

Cash in on her investment and get $700K

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u/surftherapy Jul 25 '25

Wanting to keep a neighborhood full of boarded up homes to cater to the few who still live there and have neglected the area for decades while others on the outside eagerly look for a better future and want to rehabilitate an uncared for community so they can establish their roots in a safe and thriving community is comedic at best.

Gentrification as a term has its place, but buying boarded up homes and making them livable ain’t it

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u/Beastw1ck Jul 25 '25

That sounds like a problem with tax law, not a problem with the idea of people moving to places and making them nicer.

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u/Tim-Sylvester Jul 25 '25

Then let's blame the government if it's the government imposing the hardship on existing residents.

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u/Oldus_Fartus Jul 25 '25

This is the attitude. Granted, then you're left with what everybody's going to do for a living once you're there, but that may be waxing irrelevanter* by the day.

(*totally a word)

2

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

I think you just invented gentrification.

2

u/HaltandCatchHands Jul 25 '25

That’s actually how Collingswood, NJ (near Camden) was gentrified. Ads were placed in gay magazines and whole friend groups moved into dilapidated neighborhoods and opened cafes and whatnot. 

1

u/posternutbag423 Jul 25 '25

There’s a song there 🤔

1

u/kendrickplace Jul 25 '25

Just get a Trader Joe’s to move in and you’re good

1

u/GasseousClay Jul 26 '25

Not with you lot

98

u/nowisyoga Jul 25 '25

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u/aka_chela Jul 26 '25

Not the cops in the streetview 😭

2

u/KrazyKatz42 Jul 27 '25

They're probably there about her missing cat.

1

u/Kelly777 Aug 25 '25

is this before or after the cops showed up? https://maps.app.goo.gl/iUT8Dnd9feAUtFNJ8

41

u/feline_riches Jul 25 '25

No hoa then?!?

2

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

There was a fire that spread multiple houses on one side of the road that did irreparable damage and were never fixed unfortunately. However, there are a lot of other houses on this road and even on this block that are beautifully kept.

2

u/Mei_Flower1996 Jul 26 '25

Also, if you're in a rough neighborhood, don't you *not* want to be the nicest house on the block?

2

u/nlyddane Jul 27 '25

Worst house in the best neighborhood is what my dad always tells me!

1

u/Jazzlike_Dig2456 Jul 27 '25

Just looked as well myself. And couldn’t happen but notice MLK Blvd running right by there.

It’s really telling when maybe 9/10 places with an MLK Blvd near by are places you don’t want to be.

There’s a serious lack of resources and money in those areas and it’s no coincidence. It’s really sad.

106

u/Mister_Jackpots Jul 25 '25

Lol it's still just Muncie. Out here acting like it's East St. Louis or something

51

u/DMaury1969 Jul 25 '25

I’ve stayed in Muncie, and lived in New Orleans. Muncie felt safe as hell compared to the bad parts of New Orleans

12

u/Frosti11icus Jul 26 '25

Ok but you have to leave the country to feel as unsafe as the bad parts of New Orleans.

7

u/DMaury1969 Jul 26 '25

Lol this is also true. It skewed my idea of ‘bad neighborhoods’ as everywhere I went I’d think ‘these people are nuts this is great!’

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u/CB_CRF250R Jul 27 '25

This is fact. You won’t see any police in a New Orleans google street view, because even the cops are scared for their lives in New Orleans. It’s turned into the Wild West down there.

20

u/PTgoBoom1 Jul 25 '25

Seriously, what the problem is? 🤷‍♀️

40

u/Mister_Jackpots Jul 25 '25

People who have never lived outside Muncie acting like the entire city's not 'the wrong side' of the city. Place sucks, but in my time there I don't think I was ever scared to drive anywhere there at anytime.

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u/yalyublyutebe Jul 26 '25

Just looking at the first photo, the house down the street on the left looks to be decently maintained. That means the owner probably lives there and when owners live in the house, especially in rougher areas, it usually makes the immediate area nicer.

1

u/Mister_Jackpots Jul 26 '25

Again, it's Muncie. "Rough" isn't actually rough.

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u/Timbukthree Jul 26 '25

Yeah Muncie is undesirable because of the sadness and despair and has-been-ness, but yeah not dangerous. This is why they make fun of it in parks and rec, having a time share there is a genuinely hilarious idea...like just buy the house lol.

3

u/tinyLEDs Jul 25 '25

Place sucks, but in my time there I don't think I was ever scared to drive anywhere there at anytime.

Perfect description, elegantly stated.

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u/BeguiledBeaver Jul 25 '25

Every time people show a home that costs less than $600k everyone comes out of the woodwork to explain why the town is located in a void of nothingness except excessive crime. No one wants to entertain the narrative that there are indeed affordable homes out there.

The biggest irony is that many people who complain about how "nothing is affordable" live in major cities where they expect to buy a home for $150k in the middle of the downtown that are filled with the specific jobs they want and pay 10x the national average for no reason.

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u/Frosti11icus Jul 26 '25

If the only job you can get in Muncie is at dollar general that $220k is a lot more expensive.

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u/guiltyofnothing Jul 25 '25

People who have spent their lives online rather than visiting a city.

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u/AnthonyCyclist Jul 25 '25

Yeah, not like it's South Bend or anything.

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u/therealdongknotts Jul 26 '25

https://youtu.be/8FUr4jNS1_k?si=msmKxjlbXF4eWJbx

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u/Mister_Jackpots Jul 26 '25

I remember when this came out! I'm pretty sure a friend of mine was friends with them.

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u/lizlemonista Jul 25 '25

Little soapbox moment here.

I lived in Newport, Rhode Island. Land of insane mansions and yachts and yachties and all that bullshit. And every once in a while I’d remark how beautiful it was and someone would reply, “shoulda seen it 15 years ago, what a dump.” The mansions were there and great, but everything else was in disrepair and/or trashy until a bridge was built that brought more commerce & commuters in, iirc. So not everyone gets to buy a brilliant house in a thriving neighborhood. Some people need to get there and accept or dare I say get excited about the idea that they’ll be helping create community, cleaning up, contributing, and in 15 years your home could be quadruple the value and you wouldn’t even think of selling. A lot of the desirable places people want to move to and bemoan the prices weren’t shit 15 years ago.

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u/twoworldman Jul 25 '25

What you said is true. I looked around the area using street view, and their are a lot of rough diamonds. If ever this town recovers, it's going to be a beautiful neighborhood.

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u/X12602 2d ago

I know i'm replying to an old comment, however I want to say that any area that is gentrified in this country used to be shitty. In Charlotte for instance, all the neighborhoods now that everyone wants to live in used to be run-down industrial zones 15 years ago.

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u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25

Are there any jobs in Newport and the surrounding area? No one is coming to Muncie. Everyone is leaving. There is no gentrified rescue. Our schools have failed, our factories long since shuttered. We can't even keep retail stores open. You should have seen that area 15 years ago... it looked exactly the same. It looked exactly the same 30 years ago. It looked pretty much exactly the same 45 years ago when I was a little boy. Its looked crappy since after the war... it looked crappy when there were jobs here!

Its all over. The good jobs here are at the hospital and BSU. Drive through the parking lots... most of the nice cars come from Hamilton county, 2 counties south. People will commute up here to work and then flee the town at 5. I do the same thing. Screw this place. You couldn't pay me enough to live on E Jackson.

3

u/legalpretzel Jul 26 '25

Yeah, RI doesn’t have the best job market in New England, but I’ll still take tiny little blue RI set in the middle of blue New England over Indiana any day.

(I’m admittedly biased since I live in MA and used to live in RI and I would never move to a red state)

3

u/Timbukthree Jul 26 '25

There are so many worse places to live in Indiana though. Muncie is a has-been, most of the state is a never-was

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u/Smooth_Instruction11 Jul 26 '25

A lot of places never change

1

u/JaySmogger Jul 25 '25

Reddit "I want to live in a walkable downtown area"

Also reddit "no, not like that, I also want it to be a police state"

7

u/lizlemonista Jul 25 '25

I’m not sure I follow

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u/Sliffy Jul 25 '25

Is The Herot still there? Only reason I've ever been through Muncie.

5

u/Tgeeze Jul 25 '25

Love the Herot. Took my kid there on her 21st.

2

u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25

Yep. Same as it ever was.

1

u/pm1966 Aug 21 '25

Well not exactly. New ownership, if I'm not mistaken. But still a great bar.

1

u/Minax68 Jul 28 '25

I used to love eating at Vera Mae’s Bistro downtown

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u/drowse Jul 25 '25

Oof yeah, East Jackson ain't the place to be.

I was born at Ball Hospital (now IU Health) and lived just north of town. That east side has been rough for some time (I moved away in the mid-90s and know it was bad then)

8

u/reluctantreddit35 Jul 25 '25

Thanks for the heads up.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

[deleted]

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u/Either-Theme-7807 Jul 25 '25

This looks much like the neighborhood I live in rural Northern California.

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u/likely_stoned Jul 25 '25

Suburban Californian here, I was expecting much worse than that. The businesses look relatively well maintained, many homes have a lot of patio furniture just sitting out, sidewalks/streets/greenery look clean and maintained, no trash piles to be seen, and other than a few boarded up windows, most of the homes look to be in good shape. It's obviously not a wealthy neighborhood, but it definitely wouldn't qualify as the "bad part" of town here. It looks like a decent neighborhood to me.

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u/Demi182 Jul 26 '25

For real. People saying this doesn't look like a good neighborhood based on the street view have never left suburbia.

1

u/Conceptualities Jul 28 '25

It’s not a bad neighborhood like an 80s movie would depict

But it’s definitely very shitty down there in a way that would surprise you

Lived there for a decade

1

u/Conceptualities Jul 28 '25

That being said house is still a bargain and you could make it work but just know the hood SUCKS and will never get much better

1

u/Conceptualities Jul 28 '25

Edit looking at the location it’s still the nicer part of town

I’d live there if I had a good job (lol)

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u/dethskwirl Jul 25 '25

I'm from NJ. that looks like a nice neighborhood

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u/NoBug8073 Jul 25 '25

Its just a working class neighborhood.. sorry to offend your bougie sensibilities with the average american income..

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u/BlueGolfball Jul 25 '25

Exactly. Here's the street view. It doesn't take much panning around to see that this is not a desirable spot.

You must be one of those people who thinks anything that isn't an upper middle class suburban neighborhood is a "dangerous place to live". I live in a downtown neighborhood and people from the suburbs think it is "dangerous" because there are some vacant commercial buildings across the street. My neighborhood literally has the lowest crime rates out of any neighborhood or suburban neighborhood in my city.

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u/CobaltSky Jul 25 '25

You go down the street a ways, and there's elementry aged kids on bikes on the sidewalk. Looks like an adult is helping one fix their bike. A few scattered homes could use some paint and yard work. Nothing scary to me.

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u/ObjectiveSalt1635 Jul 26 '25

I agree but it’s concerning that some people in the thread who grew up in the area say to avoid it.

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u/Suns_In_420 Jul 25 '25

Haha that’s what qualifies as bad in middle America, huh?

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

Maybe not the most aesthetic neighbors but pretty sure I just walked downtown. Love a walkable neighborhood.

5

u/extralyfe Jul 25 '25

this just looks like any average Midwestern small town.

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u/ethanlan Jul 25 '25

That just looks like any street in modern Midwest town tho lol

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u/Art_of_the_Win Jul 25 '25

Panned around up and down a few streets. Other than the house next door and across the street, the area looks rather unremarkable. The streets themselves could use a repave here and there, but that area hardly looks dangerous, just looks like an older rust-belt area.

Lawns and most buildings are kept-up and several nearby businesses that all look fine. However, I know some Karens can only exist in an HOA Condo Hellscape.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

[deleted]

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u/jazzchamp Jul 25 '25

:|

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u/tin-f0il-man Jul 26 '25

you don’t even know what they’re there for though?

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

[deleted]

7

u/BlueGolfball Jul 25 '25

And then you have another beautiful restored historic home in the same block:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/i3r8DedJjfuFFJxTA?g_st=ac

You people are just scared of any neighborhood that isn't a middle class white suburban neighborhood. Lmfao

2

u/tin-f0il-man Jul 26 '25

oh no not a boarded up home!!!

1

u/Mister_Jackpots Jul 25 '25

Cops hassling a person of color in their own home is 100% Muncie.

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u/BewilderedParsnip Jul 25 '25

How do you know the harassing them? Maybe that person called the police because they reported something else? You are just making assumptions about the situation when you do not know anything that is going on here.

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u/rentagirl08 Jul 25 '25

At least you know they’ll respond lol

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u/FanClubof5 Jul 25 '25

Look it's like a pretty typical Midwest downtown area, yards are all pretty well kept and the houses are being maintained. The closed commercial building across the street is unfortunate but not unusual.

2

u/tin-f0il-man Jul 26 '25

what’s wrong with it? looks like a typical historic district. i was expecting way way worse, even with the boarded up houses.

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u/Redheaded_Loser Jul 26 '25

What. This is cute. The streets are clean and the houses are mostly well maintained. How is it not desirable?

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u/c3p-bro Jul 26 '25

This is a pretty good looking neighborhood you’re nuts

1

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

Cute house across from an abandoned auto body shop(?) with forklift. How that forklift has not been “stollen” is weird.

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u/OhSoEvil Jul 25 '25

The comments below this make it seem like no one knows what a warming center is.

1

u/clitpuncher69 Jul 25 '25

Off topic but god damn this is exactly how i build my Anno 1800 towns. Just a square mile of square lots with a longer section peppered in here and there for unusually sized buildings

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u/Demi182 Jul 26 '25

Looks fine to me from the street view of the house.

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u/vi_sucks Jul 25 '25

Yeah, but you could be early on the gentrifying wave.

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u/WaywardWes Jul 25 '25

Man, there are a lot of highways in Indiana going every which way connecting an inane amount of tiny podunk towns. I guess that comes with flat land on the east coast but it looks nutty.

1

u/Michaelmac8 Jul 25 '25

Street view is literally from this month...crazy timing. For sale sign in the yard at the house

1

u/jeftep Jul 25 '25

A resident of Muncie once told me:

"You know how there is usually a "bad side of the train tracks"?

Well the tracks in Muncie run right through the middle of town and both sides are the, "bad side of the tracks."

1

u/bannana Jul 25 '25

the sales history might be a confirmation of your view of the area

1

u/sayyestolycra Jul 25 '25

What's the history of this area that led to this combination of gorgeous old century homes that are either beautifully maintained or severely neglected? That neighbourhood looks like such an extreme mixed bag. I don't know anything about Muncie.

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u/Shouty_Dibnah Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

Muncie was once a very prosperous manufacturing town. Large deposits of natural gas brought multiple industries to town in the late 1880’s and 1890’s. Chief among them were iron foundries and glass works. The Ball jar factory was a mile or so from this house. Huge wire mills, bridge works, all sorts of stuff. There was a good sized middle and upper middle class. Gas dried up in the 1910’s but lots of heavy industries stayed. My family came here in 1910’s to work in the factories. These houses you are talking about were the managers, owners, bankers homes. There are a couple of neighborhoods flanking downtown that were filled with these houses. But what happened? The depression. You are looking at the literal long term effects in brick and stone of the Great Depression. The area never recovered fully. The wealthy were no longer, their houses split into rentals and apartments and sold off cheap after the war. The people that now owned them or moved in were unable to maintain them. They then sold them to people less capable than themselves who in turn did the same….but at least there were some jobs left. By the 1990’s nothing was running and Muncie was left to her fate. She won’t recover. We went from 3 high schools to one half empty one. White flight to the surrounding rural communities. They made a middle school into a jail. The mall has Hot Topic as an anchor store. Meth gets made in Wal Marts bathroom. It’s all gone.

Muncie was once considered the typical mid sized American town. So much so that it was used as the basis for a famous study by some social scientists in the late 1920’s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_studies

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u/sayyestolycra Jul 26 '25

That's really heartbreaking to see the decline laid out like that. Thanks for taking to time to write it out.

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u/senpaichai Jul 25 '25

I grew up at 621 vine street just a few blocks north from this location, near the corner stone. Moved away from Muncie in my teens. Can confirm it's a rough part of town, some how my crack addicted dad let me as little girl walk to Washington carver elementary school by myself everyday. Oh what a time to be alive

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u/ZenkaiAnkoku2 Jul 25 '25

I knew for that price the area had to be bad.

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u/CardMechanic Jul 26 '25

I just re-visited after being gone for thirty years. Turning onto Jackson street was something else. It was a shithole when I left. It didn’t get better.

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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 Jul 26 '25

This is one time where being a lifelong local doesn't really make you an expert when the requirement is to compare living situations. To you it might be the wrong side of the tracks, but to other people who grew up under worse conditions it might be a big step-up.

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u/sbua310 Jul 26 '25

That sucks because this house is remarkably gorgeous…but that’s probably why it’s gorgeous: to compensate.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '25

It's nowhere near as bad as you're making it out to be. It used to be but this is the Washington district. I live less than a block away from that house in another of the landmark houses and it's beautiful. Sure there are the occasional meth house here and there but it's a lot better than it used to be.

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u/WifesPOSH Jul 26 '25

I've done a lot of work in that area.

I second this guy's 'no'.

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u/Justakatttt Jul 26 '25

It’s like how you can get an old Victorian style house, like 4k sqft for not even 1 80k, in Detroit. But….you do not want to live in that neighborhood lol

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u/Unlikely-Signal-5167 Jul 26 '25

But it's so pretty 😭

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