Alissa and her husband communicated very well and had a TON of awesome recommendations upon our arrival. The house looks newly remodeled and is beautiful on the inside and out with nice finishes everywhere. The house value was tremendous for what we paid for nightly. The location of the house is close to many places (French Quarter, Garden District, Business District, etc.). When I asked my cousin who lived in NOLA for many years which parts of town I should look to stay in, the Bywater was described as "up and coming". You can see glimpses of new restaurants/bars starting to come in with the "path of progress" but my friends and I also saw a lot of gritty poverty (got asked for money by people just down the street, the house across the street is abandoned, I felt intimidated walking into the market three minutes away) around the area and didn't particularly feel safe (especially at night in the surrounding neighborhood). This was coming from a group of guys who grew up in a city of a million people so we're not from some corn field part of Nebraska that doesn't understand city living. While we never felt unsafe in the house at anytime, it was one of those, "I guess we will just be Ubering to and from our destinations most of this trip" type of a deal.
I want to reiterate that the hosts were excellent and the house itself is beautiful, super clean, and a 10-20 minute walk or uber away from everything which was fantastic. If I personally had a do-over though, I would have picked a better neighborhood in NOLA to stay at with my friends. That's no one's fault other than my own but I also think it's worthy of mentioning our experiences with the neighborhood as a call out for consideration.