Plan B Forum

This 749 Square foot home costs only $500 - and boasts three bedrooms


Bargain: This two bedroom, one bathroom home is on the market for $500


For only $3,000 this four bedroom, two bathroom house is yours


Investment: This pretty bungalow spread over 692 square foot costs a bargain $2,500


this three bedroom house is on sale for $3,000


This three bedroom detached bungalow will set buyers back $3,000

Buy them, the land must be worth those prices alone?

This one looks like it might look nice with a good Tudor style paint job....

Were it not for the fact that the background looks like a "darkness falls at The Great House At Collin Wood...gothic thing..

Given the boarded windows on several of them, where are they, downtown Detroit?

Yes, note the small print.

I might move to Detroit if I were admitted in MI and could get a relevant position. I've been following the decline and resurgence there; right now things are very bleak in some ways, but at the same time a lot of artsy types are moving in due to the incredible deals on houses. Obviously schools and other public services aren't good at present, so not terrific for families with small kids perhaps. But surely Detroit will experience a comeback at some point, and those who buy properties now will have made a wise investment.

Some of those really cheap houses have been long stripped of all valuable guts by vandals - I'm sure a good deal of renovation would be required.

There are cheap houses in distressed neighborhoods in almost every big city. Aside from the crime factor, you also buy into horrible municipal governments that are close to - or essentially are - bankrupt, and therefore knowing that the tax burden going forward will only get worse as time goes by. Maybe a lot worse. And the municipal services (trash collection, fire, police) are generally equally corrupt (i.e., strong unions), expensive, and unreliable.

It ain't for nothing that those houses are cheap. No sane person would want to live there.

Not really Detroit at the moment is seriously undervalued even in the good neighborhoods Just the other Day I was haering how one of the old mansions is going for 400K if you meet the sellers requrements (read preservation) this is a property that was worth over 10mil before the bust.

Point made, CP, but the pictured houses and neighborhoods are shit-holes.

I have no doubt the knowledgeable locals could find some good deals. But still, to the extent a disfunctional municipality and school system can drag you down, Detroit and its citizens are definitely being drug down.

Yer prolly just paying for the lot, the houses look like they would need some major work.

Better demolished and build back new...

This will please Dave...

To America, the automobile and the open road have always been symbols of free-market individualism; and on the bumper stickers of the cars there are still the same slogans proclaiming various forms of neo-liberal freedom.

But whether you call it crony capitalism or state capitalism, the auto industry's successful turnaround - GM made a $7bn profit this year - bears the hallmarks of European and Japanese style statism.

And while much of America's recovery remains fragile, halting and uncertain, the turnaround in cities like Detroit, Toledo and the like is tangible, and has much to do with the government's one-off foray into industrial activism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/17842000

ETA: From the same article.

But that's where the politics comes in. Consider this as a headline: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt". It was an unusually forthright strap in the New York Times, which generally prefers understatement and opacity. It was the banner for an op-ed article written in 2008 by Mitt Romney, who is now virtually certain to become the Republicans' presidential candidate.

Romney, whose dad was an automobile man, wrote: "If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye."

Hence the reason Michigan is losing its status as a swing state in this election cycle.