About the State College, Bellefonte and Centre County, Pennsylvania Area 

Return on Investment
Besides the obvious family benefits of schools & safety, both features play into an area's quality as an investment.  One reason college towns are particularly attractive to investors is because there's always a fresh flow of renters (whether students or professors) and university towns tend to be less expensive than major metro areas, making it easier to cover buying costs.

You can really make the numbers work if you've got a kid who is going to be in school for four years & you get a home with four bedrooms.  With housing, sometimes it's hard to make rent meet the mortgage payments, but for four or five kids living in a home, it's not too bad.

Of course  there's an important condition, which is having one resident related to the landlord & possibly economically incentivized, if you have your own kid living there, they're not going to tear it up.....hopefully.

There's another advantage for parents buying an investment property in a college town, especially their own alma mater.  Anytime they head back to school for a big football game or to see their child, they can write off part of the trip since it's to - in part - inspect a rental property.

College towns are also attractive locations for corporations, especially those in highly information-driven industries.  Just examine the wealth of biotech firms in Boston or the number of technology or venture capital firms in and around Palo Alto.  Work done at Harvard or Stanford, for example, churns out highly qualified employees as well as dynamic start-up firms.

Research universities can spin off entrepreneurial companies through the commercialization of the university's intellectual property as well as the talented graduates and drop-outs that want to stay in the area and start their own companies.

In combination, these cities offer about as good a quality of life as it gets.

#4 of the list.....State College, PA...."Penn State University"
While most people aren't sure what exactly Penn State's mascot, a Nittany Lion, is, the teams bearing that logo finished ninth in last year's Director's Cup.  Home prices for a four-bedroom house are an average of $307,500.  Public schools rank second of the college towns measured (even though this is technically a borough) and State College had the lowest violent crime rate of college towns measured, according to FBI data.

These Websites will assist you when looking for general information about the Centre County Area:
If additional information is needed, feel free to email us directly at lindalowe@aol.com or ryanslowe@yahoo.com 

Centre Daily Times: http://www.centredaily.com
State College Info: http://www.statecollege.com; http://state-college.com/
Downtown Guide: http://www.downtownstatecollege.com
Penn State University: http://www.psu.edu/

Bellefonte, PA http://www.bellefonte.net/; http://bellefonte.com/index.shtml

Chamber of Business & Industry: http://www.cbicc.org/

Centre County Government: http://www.co.centre.pa.us/

RE/MAX Centre Realty: http://www.statecollegehomesales.com/

Local School District Websites 

Bald Eagle Area School District: http://www.beasd.org
Bellefonte Area School District: http://www.basd.net/
Penns Valley Area School District: http://www.pennsvalley.org/
Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District: http://www.pomounties.org/pomounties/site/default.asp
State College Area School District: http://www.scasd.org/scasd/site/default.asp

Free School Reports: http://realestate.yahoo.com/Schools

It's our job to know EVERYTHING about Centre County!