$1 houses in Detroit

Rebelheart · 04-03-2010 09:00PM #1

There was this great article in yesterday's Guardian about the Detroit property market, where apparently it is not unusual to find houses for $1 and now very common to find houses for sale for a few hundred dollars. One in five houses in the city are now vacant. The article gives the impression that Detroit is dying on its feet along with the car industry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/02/detroit-homes-mortgage-foreclosures-80

Although the city doesn't look too bad in these pictures

Interestingly, there is at least one voluntary neighbourhood committee which is going in, without court permission, and bulldozing houses in their area because they have become hives of anti-social activity. The group/company is named Blight Busters and they have their own website:

http://www.blightbusters.org/

Here's hoping some of this will rub off on the Irish property market, which is currently being prevented from free falling by our taxes/government support/NAMA.

galwayrush · 04-03-2010 09:05PM

The bullet proof car and body armour will cost you a fortune though.:rolleyes:

Overheal · 04-03-2010 09:05PM

Welcome to the News of 2008?

edit: Actually, 2000

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DTNB&s_site=detnews&f_site=detnews&f_sitename=Detroit+News%2C+The+%28MI%29&p_multi=DTNB&p_theme=gannett&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F7501F480D71FC9&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

InTheTrees · 04-03-2010 09:06PM

Rebelheart wrote: »

There was this great article in yesterday's Guardian about the Detroit property market, where apparently it is not unusual to find houses for $1 and now very common to find houses for sale for a few hundred dollars. One in five houses in the city are now vacant. The article gives the impression that Detroit is dying on its feet along with the car industry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/02/detroit-homes-mortgage-foreclosures-80

Although the city doesn't look too bad in these pictures

Interestingly, there is at least one voluntary neighbourhood committee which is going in, without court permission, and bulldozing houses in their area because they have become hives of anti-social activity. The group/company is named Blight Busters and they have their own website:

http://www.blightbusters.org/

Here's hoping some of this will rub off on the Irish property market, which is currently being prevented from free falling by our taxes/government support/NAMA.

You'd be safer living in baghdad than in some of those detroit neighborhoods.

Seriously. You'd need to be just as well armed anyway.

bonerm · 04-03-2010 09:08PM

The Detroit area must really be going to pot! Check out what you could have bought last November if you'd had a spare €400k lying around. :eek:

Rebelheart · 04-03-2010 09:12PM

bonerm wrote: »

The Detroit area must really be going to pot! Check out what you could have bought last November if you'd had a spare €400k lying around. :eek:

Wow. This line stuck out:

"The sale of the Silverdome, completed in 1975 at a cost of $55.7 million (approx. $220 million in 2009 dollars), and sold in 2009 for $583,000 was viewed by many as a symbol of the collapse of real estate prices"

Understatement if ever there were one.

donmeister · 04-03-2010 09:12PM

Even if they paid me €10,000 I still wouldn't live there!

anonymous_joe · 04-03-2010 09:17PM

This has been a problem in Detroit since well before most of us were born.

congo_90 · 04-03-2010 09:17PM

bonerm wrote: »

The Detroit area must really be going to pot! Check out what you could have bought last November if you'd had a spare €400k lying around. :eek:

think about how small a dublin apartment you could get for that money haha. Thats crazy!

04-03-2010 09:22PM

Detroit, a city that's shrinking!
Soon many of those suburbs will revert to fields, no industry, no jobs soon to be a ghost town.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2oXzrnti4

bonerm · 04-03-2010 09:28PM

He saved Detroit before .... and he can do it again!

galwayrush · 04-03-2010 09:34PM

Overheal wrote: »

Welcome to the News of 2008?

edit: Actually, 2000

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DTNB&s_site=detnews&f_site=detnews&f_sitename=Detroit+News%2C+The+%28MI%29&p_multi=DTNB&p_theme=gannett&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F7501F480D71FC9&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

We didn't have NAMA back then:p

Tail Wagger · 04-03-2010 09:52PM

Back in the early 80s the same thing happened in parts of England. With the Miners strike and the eventual close down of the mines in the North East of England. Newcastle / Leeds/ and parts of Yorkshire.

I remember watching a documentary about one particular area where couples who ha bought their homes and rared their families, The most they could get for their homes was in the region of £500. some houses that had gone derelict were selling in the pub on a Saturday night 2 for the price of 1 @£;10 for the 2.. and the say Thatcherism is dead, long live,

Teddy Chips · 04-03-2010 09:57PM

Parts of Detroit must resemble down town Bogota at this stage.

Poly · 04-03-2010 09:59PM

Tail Wagger wrote: »

I remember watching a documentary about one particular area where couples who ha bought their homes and rared their families, The most they could get for their homes was in the region of £500. some houses that had gone derelict were selling in the pub on a Saturday night 2 for the price of 1 @£;10 for the 2.. and the say Thatcherism is dead, long live,

Yeah, but the stamp duty is the killer, you wouldn't have enough for chips if you bought two.

Run_to_da_hills · 04-03-2010 10:07PM

bonerm wrote: »

The Detroit area must really be going to pot! Check out what you could have bought last November if you'd had a spare €400k lying around. :eek:

Public liability would probably cost you double that every year.

liah · 04-03-2010 10:27PM

Honestly, and I'm not just saying this, you couldn't pay me to live in Detroit. I've been literally homeless (as in, sleeping rough) and penniless, and I'd still prefer the street in an alright city to a mansion in that place.

It's dangerous. A breeding ground for gun crime and hard drugs. It's one of those types of places that once you're in, it's ridiculously hard to get back out. I don't care that it's only $1-- it is NOT worth it.

amacachi · 04-03-2010 10:29PM

I'd welcome houses at that price in Ireland, it would be great and not at all reflective of the fact that society had completely crumbled.

AckwelFoley · 04-03-2010 11:07PM

1 dollar houses?!

Benefits:

Cheap.
Spacious
Warm summers
Urban location, close to all ammenities.

Cons:

You will probably be shot before you turn the key in the door.... for the sole reason that when playing ""Drive by shooting"" the locals get bonus rep points for shooting whiteys

Armadillo · 04-03-2010 11:14PM

I was told a few years back that Dublin Corpo sold off a few corpo houses in Darndale for £1 each in the mid 1990's. They were wrecked though from squatting junkies.

stovelid · 04-03-2010 11:15PM

Tail Wagger wrote: »

and the say Thatcherism is dead, long live,

Or soon die, as the case may be.

m@cc@ · 04-03-2010 11:19PM

Years of racist abuse and neglect by a black mayor more concerned with showing white folk whos boss rather than building a sustainable economy. They'd be better off raising that town to the ground and starting again.

AARRRGH · 04-03-2010 11:23PM

Overheal wrote: »

Welcome to the News of 2008?

edit: Actually, 2000

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DTNB&s_site=detnews&f_site=detnews&f_sitename=Detroit+News%2C+The+%28MI%29&p_multi=DTNB&p_theme=gannett&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F7501F480D71FC9&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

Hello there my friend

I think you will enjoy this video. I found it today.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/11940

barakus · 04-03-2010 11:41PM

http://www.trulia.com/foreclosure/3003994655--Idaho-St-Detroit-MI-48238

Yeah theres loads of them. Tempted to buy a few.

Mike 1972 · 04-03-2010 11:47PM

Bear in mind that property taxes and other costs of ownership probably amount to four or five figures annually ?

df1985 · 04-03-2010 11:48PM

put your hands up for one dollar houses!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYPqA4slnbQ

El Siglo · 05-03-2010 12:08AM

Old news, this has been the case for a long time now.

stovelid · 05-03-2010 12:12AM

Do some of the Irish people here actually think they could live there? Or that they're a short to medium-term investment bet?

There's obviously a reason why American people won't touch these properties with a barge pole.

Yakult · 05-03-2010 12:15AM

For the price of a house here, you could probably buy the city of detroit.

05-03-2010 12:19AM

stovelid wrote: »

Do some of the Irish people here actually think they could live there? Or that they're a short to medium-term investment bet?

There's obviously a reason why American people won't touch these properties with a barge pole.

No jobs, No Dole, High property taxes & no prospects for starters.
as well as being in a neighbourhood surrounded by derelict houses, crime probably isn't that bad as there are no people there!

stovelid · 05-03-2010 12:25AM

Surely it wouldn't be owners selling them at such low prices? Must be all repossessed or abandoned houses. Some of them look quite nice.

$1 houses in Detroit

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