Detroit Property Sales

Anyone here know anything about Detroit?
Looking for info on what the worst/best areas are.
There are some crazy sales going on, properties for as low as 50$ lol.

dude, there's a reason for that. there's no work there. soooo........

I guess if you want to just sit on it for 100 years and wait for it to be worth something again, but, bahhhhh.....

I'd look into something else if I were you.

$50 to buy,$150,000 property tax


cue robocop and OCP

In case nobody has ever taught you: "You get what you pay for"
And if these houses still make you interested, think about the kind of neighborhood they come from, who (still) lives there, and what type of activities (still) have happened there.

Case in point:

I think the main thing anyone would be interested,is if you got the land for that price too

You would be responsible for back taxes, clean up/demolition of any unfit structures....

Detroit Rock City

PARKER Edit:

I guess you could start a fight club.

afk detroit

"On the next episode of Renovation Realities, we take dilapidated houses in Detroit and follow the buyers who fix them up.

... At the same time, crew members and homeowners were required to wear a bullet-proof vest during filming."

Yeah its pretty much a combat zone in parts of Detroit

If you are lucky the roof won't leak and some windows might still have glass.

The plumbing and wiring will have been stripped out.

The nearest thing resembling a job will be at least 10 miles away and there is no public transit route to it.

The odds on getting tenants if you wish to rent is low. The odds on getting responsible tenants is nil.

Detroit has less than 1/3 the population it did when cars were built there. Whole neighborhoods are depopulated, some have been leveled by the city.

Not bashing Detroit, the article lucasroper linked to will back me up on most of this, others will cover the rest and far more.

You don't move to Detroit, you move out of Detroit.

I moved from Detroit this year. Lived there my entire life. It was very very sad to leave since so many good things I remember throughout my life are gone. (I moved to Toledo LOL)

Detroits poulation is at about 41 - 42% from it's prime... Saying that it is less than 1/3 is false! It also brings into question everything else you say! lol... but yeah a big part of Detroit is just a ***hole lol... I read an article not too long ago that the criminals are no longer making the trip out to the countryside to dispose of the bodies... They instead just throw them in abandoned homes residing in abandoned neighborhoods...

It seems like the only good "bet" is investing near a concerted and serious revitalization area - kind of a safety in numbers thing. But even that's iffy and I would think that by the time I'd feel confident about the stability of any kind of project there, it would be too late to make money. Apart from that, if someone has the money and the time, why not? I think it's something you do to make your grandchildren money, not yourself, though.

It isn't about price its about timing and location.

I knew a guy who got into Wilminton DL brownstones at JUST the right time, picked them up for ~ $14K each, patched, rented for a bit, then sold.

Or that FL 14 year old who bought a house and is making cash off it.

I would have loved to bought anything in ND around 2002-4 or right after the bubble burst. But my time machine hasn't gotten delivered yet.

Détroit! It's pronounced "dee-twa", you peasants!

EDIT: Long post - but my approach has always been to scavenge off the big animals of prey. I'm upper middle class by our standards in the UAE, which basically means i'm piss poor here compared to the over 20,000 Millionaires and 1,000+ billionares in a community that is only 850,000 large. By western standards I would be considered upper class, earnings of over 750,000 a year. There are spots in the US and Canada where I get greater bang for my buck. That's what I was hoping to get on advice on.

in 1981 my father in law bought 4 houses in Irvine. He paid 200k total for 3 bungalos and a semi-detached house, from the Banks. At the time his father and brother were trying to talk him out of it.

In dubai, I bought 3 apartments for a total of 300k in 2010. I could turn them today for 500k each. But there is a boom coming to dubai and I'm hoping each one goes up to the 750k mark.

There are opportunities in the real estate market if you catch things while they are low.

I don't know anything about detroit which is why I was hoping some people could give me an idea on which areas are ghettos and which areas still have tax paying citizens living there.

Also, i'm not familiar with the american real estate regulations and laws. What I am accountable for and what taxes I would have to pay. The "small print" issues they don't tell you.

I've learnt that there is always a catch.

For example - this case is something I actually went through:

In Dubai there were some premium properties up for sale directly from the developer. At cityscape (a real estate trade show) you could literally buy a property with a 10% down payment, at 8 AM in the morning on the first day, and sell it for a 25% profit at 5pm on the last night, 5 days later.

Me and my brother bought around 20 properties using the 10% down payment scheme and a statement of our combined bank accounts worth and valuation of our companies as collateral.

We made about 450k USD profit in less than 5 days. Dubai 2007 was just that crazy. It took us about 6 months to see that value in liquidity due to regulatory procedures and bank paper work + due diligence, but by august 2008 we were both 225k USD richer.

We didn't unload all the property. We held onto 4 apartments.
Those 4 apartments stayed vacant for 3 years. We couldn't find people to actually rent. We started asking for around 75k/ 2 cheques rent a year and we were down to asking for 25k/year with 12 cheques a year.

By the end of the 3 years, the developers turned over the building to the tenants and the property management company.

Within 1 week we were at court fighting the developer and the property management company over who should pay for the maintenance of the building and the amenities.

Its blazing hot in Dubai 5 months of the year. The chillers that are needed for water and cooling cost 2,000,000 USD. These chillers have a life cycle of around 3-4 years depending on use.

The building was empty. There were maybe 2 east european families living in the building throughout the entire 3 years.

Yet the fine print said the property owners would be liable for such.

Since every other owner of the apartments in this property was an investor, and not tenants, there was no rent income to pay for the upkeep of everything.

The result: we sold the properties to the bank for a loss. about 80k loss on each.

Story doesn't end there. The bank sold them to a property management company, "better homes". They listed them for rent. They stayed vacant too long. The company inherited the liabilities. they are now listed for peanuts. The entire area has, all surrounding buildings have turned into a ghetto.

We actually had a lot of liquidity to ride it out, but the signs were grim. the financial crisis meant everyone who had invested or finances these properties couldnt find tenants to cover their liabilities, which meant that even those of us who had the liquidity to ride it out, couldn't because we were incurring these phenomenal costs of upkeep and maintenance. a snow ball effect, chain reaction where the property just eats away at itself.

Skip to 2013 March. Property prices have gone up 25% in the first quarter of 2013. Expected 30% increase by the end of year.
Businesses are recruiting employees again.

What am I going to do? sell the properties I have by the end of year and wait for the next bust to buy up more. But its just about recognizing rock bottom, and entering at the right time.

Detroit doesn't seem like it can go any further down. This might be the right time to buy.

the prices are dead cheap in Detroit because... well, then you'd have to live in Detroit. It's going to get worse before it gets better for sure. Unless outsourcing of manufacturing to China and elsewhere magically stops, the problem with Detroit (and other areas too), is that there's just no jobs. They only just announced that the city wants to go bankrupt. There's going to be a lot of court proceedings on how to do that, creditors are going to be short-changed, and some businesses that remain may not want to stay. Also keep in mind that the people who have education, skills, and have the jobs that are left DO NOT live in Detroit. They live in the affluent suburbs. It's when an urban area starts to turn around that affluent people start moving back into certain urban areas, fixing them up because it's "hip." That is at least a decade away for Detroit.

I actually live in Toledo. What area are you in? :o

Also:

Ford adds 800 more salaried workers to hiring plan

Not ground-breaking, but it's a step up regardless.

Point place. Off alexis road. I work at the lowes on airport highway lol

Ahhh, neat! At my old office I would go and have lunch there at Coney Island. And then my mother brings me along to help carry stuff out of the Menard's around there, lol.

Hah. Small world. Im at the Chipotle off 475 almost every day @_@. All the burritos.

Mmmm, Chipotle :Q

I'm currently working on getting myself and the parents moved to a smaller space a little outside Ottawa Hills- we're revamping the house my late granddad used to live in on Willow Lane, which is nearby the freeway. I run a Pet Boutique over at Main Street in Sylvania with them, it's a family business. :P

More interested in this.


http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9904-Kip-Dr-Beverly-Hills-CA-90210/20523467_zpid/

dayum, you a millionaire or somethin'?

btw Suka, you thinking about going to the Pizza Palooza over at Centennial Terrace? I'm gonna check it out today, haha

lol dubai will one-up anything you can show me. This is a dude's PRIVATE GARAGE - he isn't even in the top 1,000 list either.
Dubai is also the poorer sister of Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi, the capital, is around 50x wealthier.

I'd take Beverly Hills over Dubai any day.

I'd take anywhere over Dubai or that general region of the world (even the hellhole that is Ireland),sure it's stupidly rich and ***,but the cons outweigh the pros.

I'd take dublin. Wasn't trying to compare them in anything other than wealth. Dubai, AD and Doha are just insane wealth wise.