15 homes in Detroit for less than $500...I have questions

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Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,095
513
126
In detroit? Not really. Their home countries are probably better and more safe.
 
glenn1

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
Sure they're only $500 to purchase, but that neglects what you'll be asked to pay in taxes to get the city out of bankruptcy and allow the mayor and city council to have some extra funds to embezzle or pledge to their corrupt union buddies. $500 now and a limitless tax bill later, and all for the "privilege" of living in Detroit? No thanks.

And I don't believe for a second that being a "Detroit $500 property owner" is going to make you look good to anyone, on paper or otherwise.
 
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nickbits

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2008
4,122
1
81
Remobz said:
IF someone was willing to immigrate to the USA it would look good on paper that you own a home and property in the USA...right?
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Depending on what visa you are talking about, having/proving a US domicile is required. However I have a feeling you have no idea about immigrating and are not eligible anyways.
 
zsdersw

zsdersw

Lifer
Oct 29, 2003
10,560
2
0
There isn't a single house on there to which I would say "yes, I'd be happier with this house than the $500 or less I spent on it."

For every single one I'd say "I'd be happier with the money".
 
SheHateMe

SheHateMe

Diamond Member
Jul 21, 2012
7,251
20
81
If you have a lot more money, you can just get a home in Palmer Woods (in Detroit) where all the white folks are. One of my Uncles got a $300,000 home for $150,000 there not too long ago. It was beautiful.
 
boomerang

boomerang

Lifer
Jun 19, 2000
18,890
642
126
Article is from 2010. Right around that time IIRC, foreign investors were putting lots of bucks into these homes in Detroit. Today they're worth less.

If you want to make money related to Detroit real estate, find a very cost effective way to tear down these homes. If you could do it for a couple hundred (assuming someone would be willing to pay even that much) and make money you'd be livin' large. There's a ton of them.
 
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KB

KB

Diamond Member
Nov 8, 1999
5,374
372
126
Anyone want to get together and buy all the houses on a couple streets, bull doze them all, fence them up and create our own AT gun-toting hippy-commune? We can even make our own rules like no communications majors allowed.

I imagine all of the copper has been taken from the house by thieves. If not there may be enough copper in the house to pay for it.


If I was silly rich I would buy all of Detroit real cheap and kick everyone out.
 
boomerang

boomerang

Lifer
Jun 19, 2000
18,890
642
126
KB said:
Anyone want to get together and buy all the houses on a couple streets, bull doze them all, fence them up and create our own AT gun-toting hippy-commune? We can even make our own rules like no communications majors allowed.

I imagine all of the copper has been taken from the house by thieves. If not there may be enough copper in the house to pay for it.


If I was silly rich I would buy all of Detroit real cheap and kick everyone out.
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You'd be hard pressed to find a home in Michigan without a basement. That makes the bulldozing project a bit more complicated and costly. I guarantee you the copper is gone along with the aluminum siding and anything with any value whatsoever. They're stealing fucking manhole covers.

Wife's brother-law-law is a muckety muck at DTE Energy. Tearing down the homes is not as simple as it sounds. Electric, gas, water, sewer all have to be dealt with. There's a reason nobody is doing it.

BTW, they'd steal the fence.

Yes, I do know your post was tongue-in-cheek.
 
poofyhairguy

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
126
KB said:
If I was silly rich I would buy all of Detroit real cheap and kick everyone out.
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images
 
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PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
The initial payment to purchase the house is nothing, the problem is the bills that will follow (tax bills, liens, the city will require you to upkeep/upgrade all sorts of stuff to bring things up to code and so forth. In the end you'll spend a ton of money on a house in Detroit, a place you wouldn't want to ever live in anyway.
 
boomerang

boomerang

Lifer
Jun 19, 2000
18,890
642
126
nickbits said:
they probably have a lot of tax liens on them
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I seriously doubt that the record keeping has been kept up to the point that they even know.

My wife's sister-in-law's mother died three years ago. After two years of trying to convince the city that her mother owned the house and was deceased, her SIL gave up. The city said the home did not exist. Where her mother's property tax money was going while she was alive is anyone's guess. More than likely the home was taken off the tax rolls and the money was going into somebody's pocket. How they cash the checks remains a mystery.

The house is sitting there in a decent neighborhood still fully inhabitable last they looked.
 
woolfe9998

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,038
13,797
136
zsdersw said:
There isn't a single house on there to which I would say "yes, I'd be happier with this house than the $500 or less I spent on it."

For every single one I'd say "I'd be happier with the money".
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The question isn't whether you'd want to live there. These are $500 homes and they're going to be crappy. The question whether you can buy it, renovate it, then sell it in a future hypothetically improved housing market. Presumably you rent it out while waiting for the market to improve.
 
WhipperSnapper

WhipperSnapper

Lifer
Oct 30, 2004
11,442
32
91
The homes probably aren't worth $500. They're probably in shambles and it would cost more to tear them down than the land is worth. It would also probably cost more to renovate them (assuming they didn't have to be torn down) then you could sell them for.
 
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DCal430

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2011
6,020
9
81
Also probably in such horrible places, you would need to pay people to live there.
 
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piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
Have you seen pictures of Detroit? They probably all are bare shells with leaky roofs and windows all broken and everything inside is probably vandalized. If you abandon a house in some neughborhoods after many houses have been foreclosed, who knows what will happen. Doesnt take long for such a house to decay rot and crumble to a pile of rubble. They would be better off to just buldoze some of these houses and neighborhoods and make a smaller city. If the city looks like a warzone that just gives criminals and drug addicts and the homeless some place to ruin and set fires.

The worse thing a city can do is to allow old buildings to be unoccupied. What they call an old historic building, I call a rat infested health hazard that can go up in smoke or collapse at any time. Old buildings are very dangerous and are not worth repairing. New buildings are better consrtucted have new pipes and have better insulation and better windows. These old buildings probably need to be gutted down to the bare bones and completely redone.
 
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shortylickens

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,364
136
If they were all connected I'd like to buy the whole lot, tear them down and do something useful.
 
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piasabird

Lifer
Feb 6, 2002
17,168
60
91
We have some small cities in my area and they haves some stupid laws that says you cant tare down a house and build a new one. So all the houses are old and delapidated. If they rebuilt some of them the property tax would be higher.
 
Matt1970

Matt1970

Lifer
Mar 19, 2007
12,320
3
0
piasabird said:
Have you seen pictures of Detroit? They probably all are bare shells with leaky roofs and windows all broken and everything inside is probably vandalized. If you abandon a house in some neughborhoods after many houses have been foreclosed, who knows what will happen. Doesnt take long for such a house to decay rot and crumble to a pile of rubble. They would be better off to just buldoze some of these houses and neighborhoods and make a smaller city. If the city looks like a warzone that just gives criminals and drug addicts and the homeless some place to ruin and set fires.

The worse thing a city can do is to allow old buildings to be unoccupied. What they call an old historic building, I call a rat infested health hazard that can go up in smoke or collapse at any time. Old buildings are very dangerous and are not worth repairing. New buildings are better consrtucted have new pipes and have better insulation and better windows. These old buildings probably need to be gutted down to the bare bones and completely redone.
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This. A couple of those houses look ok but that is just from the outside, the majority of them probably need to be buldozed. There is a reason why they are that cheap.
 
SheHateMe

SheHateMe

Diamond Member
Jul 21, 2012
7,251
20
81
piasabird said:
The city refuses to tear many of these buildings down for whatever reason. I think its because they are too damn lazy to do it. Before, they were saying it was an issue with money. When they tore down the old Tiger Stadium, it took FOREVER for them to finish the job. They said they didn't have the money.

What is happening now is that people are scooping these houses up and doing the job themselves. Around the corner from my Grandma, someone bought up a bunch of the houses on the block, had them demo'd and did a Habitat for Humanity project. Now, there are nice single family homes there. On the next block over, two houses mysteriously caught fire and burned down. There is another project taking place over there, too.

I think the city is just waiting on somebody to do the work for them.
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Oric

Oric

Senior member
Oct 11, 1999
871
47
91
Buy the house and burn it, claim it to be an arson by the gangs ...
 
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