Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Welcome to the neighborhood

So you are a young couple with no kids and your looking for that starter house you think you can rehab.

Does Detroit have a deal for you....
One dollar can get you a large soda at McDonald's, a used VHS movie at 7-Eleven or a house in Detroit.

The fact that a home on the city's east side was listed for $1 recently shows how depressed the real estate market has become in one of America's poorest big cities.

And it still took 19 days to find a buyer.

The sale price of the home may be an anomaly, but illustrates both the depths of the foreclosure crisis in Detroit and the rapid scuttling of vacant homes in some of the city's impoverished neighborhoods.

The home, at 8111 Traverse Street, a few blocks from Detroit City Airport, was the nicest house on the block when it sold for $65,000 in November 2006, said neighbor Carl Upshaw. But the home was foreclosed last summer, and it wasn't long until "the vultures closed in," Upshaw said. "The siding was the first to go. Then they took the fence. Then they broke in and took everything else."

I'm sure when you move in you'll be welcomed with a casserole and a hail of gun fire.

1 comment:

Ben said...

If you bought it as investment for $1 you would probably still not make money on it ever.

politics.ohio.com