Detroit homes sell for $1 amid mortgage and car industry crisis

The property taxes are really high on these houses. A lot of them have thousands of dollars in back taxes owed as well. They are no bargain.

Those houses are cheap because many are dilapidated and in areas where no one wants to touch them. No demand, money pit, bad area=Dirt cheap. Then you have the aforementioned taxes, renovation costs, etc.

reply to post by Morningglory


I live east of Gary near South Bend and its reputation is well known. It's a similar situation. Jobs left, poverty ensues, crime grows, the area degrades. South Bend has it's own mini-Gary on the west side.

I lived in central NJ until '98 and Trenton was much the same. A proud manufacturing city that fell to pieces over time when the jobs moved out of town or out of state, turning it into a crime ridden and undesirable area over the years. They've put more effort into trying to spruce it up some since I've left because it's the state capital but it's putting lipstick on a pig. Build a hotel, build a sports arena and ballpark, great. It means next to nothing if most of the residents aren't working or don't want to work. I remember reading about when the Marriott first opened downtown there after I moved out here. The cut ribbon had barely hit the sidewalk when a visitor was mugged with a 2x4. I remember thinking "Yep, that's Trenton."

I had a friend whose family grew up there. Her mother worked hard and she and her husband bought their first house in '50. Eventually, she bought three more. After her mother died in '97 she tried to sell them but it took her 6 years and not because they were expensive. The neighborhood she had grown up in had slowly turned into a drug pit from the late 60's on and it steamrolled ahead in the 80's when crack took off. I've looked in over the years and in while it never had the murder rate of Gary, some years in recent times it had a higher overall crime rate. Sad, considering its part in our country's history.

reply to post by Graybeard

Hard to believe South Bend has a mini Gary. Gary tried to revitalize the downtown they built a Sheraton and put a gambling boat out on the lake. Seems like it's only purpose is to give people something half way decent to look at as they speed past Gary on the toll road.

When it became apparent everything was going in the toilet there was so much finger pointing and bitterness. Everyone seemed to be blaming each other. Emotions ran high. US steel was like a God for many. I remember as a teen making derogatory comments about US Steel. My mother let me know in short order that if it wasn't for US Steel I wouldn't have the clothes on my back or roof over my head. She was really angry. I guess she was right but she refused to believe what they gave could also be taken away. No blame was heaped on the people not the corporation.

This wasn't just jobs. Many tradesmen passed their trades on to their children ensuring their place in a city where they had lived out their version of the American Dream. Just because it was on the scale of that of the blue collar worker doesn't diminish it's worth or the people. Right up to the end some held out hope that US Steel would swoop in and save us all. It was a hard decision to leave.

People should know the majority of the $1 Gary homes have been neglected, vandalized you name it. There are past due taxes, liens etc. Humidity is very high in the area because of the lake, Detroit is probably the same, I'm sure mold is rampant. Couple that with a few used as crack houses and there's a fair amount of homes that could never be salvaged. Homes in Gary/Detroit were bought by steelworkers/autoworkers. They were not interested in flipping them or using them to make a quick buck then split. These were lifetime investments in community. So the ones who were doing the right thing were left holding the bag of $1 homes.

I hope Detroit can reinvent itself but I feel bad for those who are still trying to fight the good fight. It's not fair how government and corporations can rape and pillage an area then run out on everyone. Groups of people can work together building communities and villages but anything the size of Detroit or any industrialized town needs that corporate contribution. These towns have become too big for the remaining people to maintain. I do believe this is a trend for industrial communities in the US. With this mentality of throw away industry I'm afraid they are throwing out the babies along with the bathwater.

In the US financial institutions are considered too big to fail. While the financial sector is vital it cannot stand alone. Without working people/products within their realm they will move on to greener, global pastures. I saw nothing done to help the working people of Gary just like I see nothing being done to bring back jobs for the unemployed across this country.

It's easy to say take on more debt by going to school, I'm certain that's what the bankers want. Believe me we have our share of student loans. If there are no jobs it just becomes an endless debt trap. By the time some finished their educations the jobs they'd hoped for had already abandoned ship. So either they educationally reinvent themselves going into more debt or they run out of resources/hope and sink lower.

I just watched Gran Torino again. I just love the old guys they are a dying breed, those waters run deep. Maybe I'm just too nostalgic but we had a great bike-riding-corner-store-white-picket-fence-kind of life. I wish kids today could know what that was like.

MG, while SB can't touch Gary's murder rate it's been right with Gary in overall crime rate(Assaults, robberies, rapes, burglaries, thefts, etc) for at least 10 years now and most of it is concentrated on the west, southwest side of town. They're trying to head it off at the pass there but it's not an easy thing to do in hard times like this.

I agree with everything else you said and it's a sad state. Trying to maintain trades across generations isn't as easy as it once was, partly because some trades that may have once been mainstays are fringe and others became modernized or automated. The pace at which these changes happened has accelerated in the last 40 years or so as well.

The changes that would need to be made would require a legislative and executive branch leadership willing to reverse some of the trends of the past twenty years and restore the US to a productive rather than a consumer society. It would also require a society that might be willing to "aim lower" and work their way to a standard of living that is comfortable to them rather than shooting for the stars before they turn 30.

Lastly, we like to think of cities as permanent but they're only as permanent/stable as the economic structure of the area. Cities have come and gone throughout history and modern ones are no exception to the rule. When an area can no longer sustain itself, people move and it declines. There's a reason why the term "ghost town" exists.

reply to post by Graybeard

South Bend was a good ways east of Gary I can't believe it spread that far. We lived in Portage for a few months before we left. They were trying to keep it out. Michigan City was already getting bad. I really hated leaving that lake. We miss the food too.

Originally posted by Graybeard
The changes that would need to be made would require a legislative and executive branch leadership willing to reverse some of the trends of the past twenty years and restore the US to a productive rather than a consumer society. It would also require a society that might be willing to "aim lower" and work their way to a standard of living that is comfortable to them rather than shooting for the stars before they turn 30.

As bad as I think we need to do this I just don't see it happening. The problem is the blue collar lifestyle doesn't generate enough profit. It's small potatoes not enough money to be made off people like that. Keeping us in big time debt was the plan. Inflating the cost of real estate, playing with our mortgages and gambling with our retirement funds is the modern way. Too much overhead with industry.

We're on a runaway train with these guys we'll see where it goes. I think we might be in deep doo-doo.

WE HAVE PURCHASED LAND IN DETROIT FOR $999

...so we can answer most of your questions.

My girlfriend's direct ancestors actually founded the city a few hundred years ago, and another of her relatives had the Canadians and Americans fight a battle in their back yard in 1812.

The fact is that you CAN buy property for a dollar. The banks are forced to sell the repossessed properties off, often fire-damaged for a pittance. $100 but will take an offer for a house built originally to quality standards in 1913 for instance is usual. And when you buy repo, the bank will have paid ALL taxes, liens and debts on the land. Likewise, the taxes on land are very low - our SUmmer tax is $56 and our winter tax bill is $6.

So, what has driven property down so far that Detroit now holds the record for the worst property crash in AMerican history. The answer is the CITY ITSELF. The actions that the city of Detroit, the Mayor's office etc have taken have massively exaggerated the catastrophe and created a total killing zone for wealth with policies that have had the exact opposite effect of their supposedly intended purpose.

1. The "anti-urban blight" legislation has spread urban blight across the face of the city like wildfire. If someone else leaves a bag of dog poo on your front lawn in the middle of the night, by dawn, you can find yourself facing a $16,000 ticket, so no-one in their right mind would buy a building downtown, so everywhere has become a blighted empty area filled only with drug trafficers and flydumpers. Likewise, they have lawn patrols to check if you've cut your grass, and if you have an untidy garden its a $100 ticket. Result? Everyone who buys a building, immediately pours gravel over any pre0existing garden to obliterate it, making the suburbs a dull, souless place.
2. To improve employment, they City now employs 60% of all the people still employed in the city. Result? The nightmare world of red tape has crippled any local businesses, forcing the survivors out of town and jacking unemployment to the stratosphere.
3. To improve the quality of the housing stock, once you buy a building, the city sends an inspector around and you are blocked from registering it until you have completed all the comprehensive works to bring it up to scratch. Result? ONe guy bought a house and has spend two years trying to repair a house. Every day he does repairs and within one or two days, someone breaks in and steals the plumbing etc, returning it to its original state. He's spent $250,000 repairing a $10,000 home and he is still not out of the woods. As a reult no-one buys buildings or lets them out, depleting the housing stock of the city and accelerating the depopulation and flooding the market with unsold properties driving prices through the floor.

We were careful and bought a secluded garden two streets from Dearborn for $999 (it was worth $50,000 a few years ago) about 15 months ago. As no-one knows its there, we;ve had no problem with the city and its tickets and with no building, we've no risk of a repair bill.

Detroit is one of the all time great investment opportunities, but you need to buy LAND with no building and no foundations which is shielded from the road by trees and bushes in the suburbs. Find one like us and you should be able to coin it!

All Detroit needs is its own Margaret Thatcher, someone to sack vast numbers of red tape civil servants, dump loads of petty legislation and a $500 lot will be worth $50,000 in a couple of years.

reply to post by aristocrat2

Originally posted by aristocrat2
All Detroit needs is its own Margaret Thatcher, someone to sack vast numbers of red tape civil servants, dump loads of petty legislation and a $500 lot will be worth $50,000 in a couple of years.

I'm afraid most cities with high foreclosure rates will fall victim to the same kind of practices you describe. Detroit should be a good example of what not to do. Unfortunately other cities will probably follow suit.

Your right to go after undeveloped property. Nothing to keep up other than the grass. Low taxes, nothing to steal or vandalize. I just don't see enough money/interest ever coming in to save the day. Hasn't happened in Gary and we left in 83. They'd have to cut a lot more than red tape to save that place.

Although you might have an undeveloped piece what's the sewer system like beneath you. what about the water lines, roads/services. Will garbage trucks even service your area?

In CO a "developed" piece of land is valued higher than one that's not. Out here the term developed does not always have to mean a structure. It could be just access roads, water, electricity and septic. Without those things you've got a piece of grazing land valued and taxed accordingly.

In the country we can improve basic services to increase the value of our cheap piece of grazing land. In Detroit however can you put in a septic tank? Can you drill a well? What about the roads we hire graders and bring out gravel for access roads. This is why large tracts of land can still be bought up fairly cheap out here. The cost of making improvements has increased dramatically. Many people are left with worthless pieces of grazing land that keeps getting shuffled around for back taxes. No profit is seen usually a loss.

We don't fully appreciate the cost/value of an infrastructure until we are left without or have to provide one for ourselves.

I live in Lake Station. Formerly known as East Gary. It's pretty grim here but I'm sure nothing compared to parts of Gary such as Glen Park. To get to IUN, I have to drive either on route 6 or 35th avenue right into the heart of Gary. Pretty sad as you drive by and see nothing but abandoned houses. Gives you a sense of foreboding. My grandma once lived in Gary as a child growing up in the 50's. She said it was beautiful and a great town to live in. Not anymore.....

Some related news:

Apparently the need for Detroit to recentralize itself is something many Detroiters agree upon, because there is a recent initiative to Downsize Detroit coming from the mayor himself. The article that link leads to describes some of the pros and cons of this idea, which has already received funding. Apparently the Detroit Land Bank, which was set up to address the property crisis which this thread is all about, is a major part of that initiative.

In my earlier post I said that I believed the best thing for Detroit would be to reinvent itself, because it is spread too thin and wasting resources on a vast area which is no longer sustainable. But this also seemed highly unlikely to me, because you would have to relocate a lot of people and business.

Well, according to the details of this initiative, this is a risk worth taking, because that is exactly what is about to happen in Detroit.