Improving area.

Regarding the article headlined "Koreatown Complexes Change Hands" on the Business Journal's Web site Oct. 1:

So my neighborhood has real estate investors salivating because it "continues to be an area where there is significant rent growth and a tremendous potential for repositioning of assets"? Wonderful!

That means yet more mammoth investment companies from far distant locations swooping in, buying up apartment properties, undertaking a slap-dash "renovation," boosting rents and marking time until they can flip it for a huge profit.

Of course actually managing the property, becoming stakeholders in the community, etc. isn't on the radar screens of these profit raiders.

And when the market collapses (as it inevitably will), thanks to arms-length ownership arrangements engineered as part of the purchase, they can walk away and leave the banks holding the bag.

Our area is improving despite not because of these exploitive investors. It happened in the late 1980s and it is happening again. Amazing!

Dana Gabbard

Los Angeles