Living Car Free - Urban real estate

Why is residential real estate so expensive in the older, close-in urban areas that work so well for carfree living? The houses tend to be smaller and older and yet they seem to command higher prices. Maybe this is something that's not true everywhere.

Just asking, because I really don't know much about real estate.

Why is residential real estate so expensive in the older, close-in urban areas that work so well for carfree living? The houses tend to be smaller and older and yet they seem to command higher prices. Maybe this is something that's not true everywhere.

Just asking, because I really don't know much about real estate.

It isn't so expensive depending on where you live. I'm in suburban Cleveland OH. In the city of Cleveland real estate is dirt cheap. You can buy starter housed with about 1000 to 1500 SF for $60,000 - $75,000. You have to look real hard to find a single family house over $150,000 that isn't new or on the Gold Coast.

Why so cheap? Cleveland is the poorest city in U.S. They have the worst school system in OH, even though they highest expenditure per pupil in the state. Crime is rampant. There are other reasons, which I won't go into. The first three are the major ones.

Tim

when energy prices really take off. like to 4-5 dollars a gallon. Expect the reverse. It's the exurbs that will be abandoned. Urban revitilization of it's grand homes will likely place them at a premimum value.
The US has always bucked the way the rest of the world lives. Most urban cities go up not out. US culture always amazed me in that we have to 'escape' to the suburbs.
The start of a trend back to the cities. Anyone see the recent report, the suburbs now have more people classified as in the 'extreme poverty,' category as compared to big cities. When life in the suburbs is seen as no means to escape our urban problem- then, why live there.

Why is residential real estate so expensive in the older, close-in urban areas that work so well for carfree living? The houses tend to be smaller and older and yet they seem to command higher prices. Maybe this is something that's not true everywhere.

Just asking, because I really don't know much about real estate.
Because people have "rediscovered" them in many cases. I grew up in a older residential area (bulk of the homes built in the teens and twenties) we moved in when it was still kind of rough now it is probably the one of the most expensive areas in town per square foot to buy a place. In 35 years my parents house has gone from a purchase price of around $12k to a value of over $300k. The biggest issue now is developers grabbing off one or two adjacent houses and building megabuck town homes and cluster homes further driving up the costs of homes in the area. Good for the current homeowners but bad for someone that wants affordable housing in that area. I suspect this is occurring all over the country.

Aaron:)

Why is residential real estate so expensive in the older, close-in urban areas that work so well for carfree living? The houses tend to be smaller and older and yet they seem to command higher prices. Maybe this is something that's not true everywhere.

Just asking, because I really don't know much about real estate.

in most urban areas you have commercial real estate in abundance and very very little housing in comparison, this skews the property values much higher, however in many many cities you can easily find very low cost apartments mixed in, Columbus is no exception, right here next door to me is a 90 yr old house or sale for $350k, 5 bedrooms-4 baths-guest house/garage in back and next to it is a 42 unit apartment building with rent in the sub $400/month range, mine is under $300 per month

and that is 1.1 miles from the center of downtown, apartments are dirt cheap, houses on commercial land are damn expensive, condos downtown are very very very expensive----the cheap ones are $138k for a very small space, the top end ones run $2 million, mid size in miranova are $338k

Depends on where you live. Here in Cincinnati you can buy a whole city block in the Over-The-Rhein neighborhood for $5. Most of urban Cincinnati is infested with crime. There are a few decent neighborhoods there, but not many.
The outlying areas of town here are much more valuable.

In the areas where this phenomenon exists, it's really just supply and demand. These neighborhoods were planned better, are closer to the amenities many people want, and usually have better access to public transportation. Also, many of these neighborhoods just plain look better since they have very mature trees and things like that.

In socal it tends to go by proximity to work/goods/schools/area, since traffic blows. Hell, even in the small town in BFE where I'm at, land goes for about ten times more cash than if you go maybe 30 miles out.

Most of urban Cincinnati is infested with crime.


Mostly done my Bengals :D

when energy prices really take off. like to 4-5 dollars a gallon. Expect the reverse. It's the exurbs that will be abandoned.
I have to disagree with this statement (for the most part). Based on where I live (suburban Detroit) I can say assuredly that these suburbs will not be abandoned for people to move into the actual city. This is where the work is and this is where the majority of people live. If anything, the city itself will be abandoned (it pretty much already is) and the suburbs will cater to the population.
I have read many times about people talking about the suburbanites driving into the major city for work, but around here I just do not see that. In fact, the entire bus line system here seems to exist solely to transport people from within the city to the suburbs for work.
There are more manual labor jobs in this area (and not just automotive) than anything, and the city itself has no manufacturing, just corporate office work. If something happens to where people "abandon" their homes to move somewhere else then that "somewhere else" will not be supported by office and clerical work, it's the blood, sweat, and back breaking labor that keeps society moving, and those will be the jobs that people will be doing.
Granted the manufacturing jobs could move within the city as well, but why would they when the workforce is already in their back yard?

So, is "midtown" the term being used now to refer to older style, close-in mixed commercial/residential neighborhoods?

I notice something very telling in this post,quite specific; the replies concerning less costly real estate are from those in the mid-west which is the only part of the country that's not off-the-wall. I knew that the midwset, particularly Detroit but most of the Great Lake states had a softer real estate market to say the least. NYC, the South, the West Coast, temporarily LA no but the rest yes,definately. Gas prices will have only a minor, temporary effect. The roiot of the problem is the imigration problem. The more vital urban areas are effected,the up and coming areas such as the south are adversly and unfortunately negatively effected, from a unaffordabily/scarcity of housing standpoint,more people,less housing. A by and large younger population, more schools and mun.srvices ,higher taxes, higher rental prices. SIMPLE

I notice something very telling in this post,quite specific; the replies concerning less costly real estate are from those in the mid-west which is the only part of the country that's not off-the-wall. I knew that the midwset, particularly Detroit but most of the Great Lake states had a softer real estate market to say the least.

+1

No jobs, uneducated populace and rampant crime in the cities are major reasons people exited the big cities. No matter how high gas goes NO ONE will move back until the problems are fixed.

Tim

mayby not Detroit, pj. But, in some of the grand neighborhoods of towns like Chicago, there have been reports of what is called 'ubban homesteading.' The beautiful grand old homes are just too grand to waste. All it takes are gates to make a neighborhood safe. Detroit is one of Ameica's premier towns which is now called third world. Others are like New Orleans, Maybe St. Louis. Should gas lines get long enough , maybe Detroit will even experience urban homesteading.? At the very least maybe folks will come back to places like Madison Heights, over commute from Howell. My expectation.

I am reading with interest the debate on whether people will return to the cities from suburbia. Take a look at what the industry is as well as where it is. Currently most of the industries that I see in suburbia are service and supply...service and supply industries are most likely going to be the ones taking the hits. Agriculture and manufacturing are where it is going to be, if energy prices go through the roof. Not cubicle farms and paper pushing. IMHO the best places to live will be small to medium sized towns that already have a diversified manufacturing base (as though there are very many of those left) near rail lines or major highways and with near by farms. I am not saying that the suburbs won't survive, but the way many of them are built just won't work in any thing but a car centric society.

Aaron:)

when energy prices really take off. like to 4-5 dollars a gallon. Expect the reverse. It's the exurbs that will be abandoned.


I heard the same thing when gas went up in the 70's, and I heard the same thing a few years ago, but then peole were sayig it about $3-$4 a gallon. Didn't happen. The higher fuel prices get, the more buisness will move out to where the skilled workers are, and that is, for most U.S. cities, out in the suburbs. It is already happening. Toyota's North American HQ is not in Cincinnati, it is 10 miles south, in Florence, Ky. 5/3rd bank will tell you the HQ is in Cincy, and they have a building there with their name on it, but if you go in there are about 10 people working there. Their real HQ is about 10 miles out of town in Madisonville.
Skilled labor, and skilled management don't want to go to city centers, too much crime, too much traffic, too much hassle. If you want them, you will build work out where they are.

There are a few exceptions: N.Y., S.F., Seattle, Chi., Portland, and maybe a few more.

that might be. As I menioned one exception- homesteading and places like Chicago. whatever form they take, I think when gas prices exceed $5 , that is when the American consumer might change habits. That likely will soon happen.

Now I'm confused. Sometimes I hear it's cheaper to buy in the far suburbs, something like every freeway exit you go further out saves you $10,000 on a house. Other times people say things like you can buy downtown real estate for $5 a city block. What I know is that the midtown areas in my city where it's easy to live carfree command a premium price on a square foot basis.

Now I'm confused. Sometimes I hear it's cheaper to buy in the far suburbs, something like every freeway exit you go further out saves you $10,000 on a house. Other times people say things like you can buy downtown real estate for $5 a city block. What I know is that the midtown areas in my city where it's easy to live carfree command a premium price on a square foot basis.

Real Estate prices are determined by one thing only - what buyers are willing to pay. If your downtown is vibrant and safe (or perceived to be so), prices will skyrocket because people will want to live close to the action and save on transportation time and costs. If your downtown is crime-ridden and decayed (or perceived to be so) people will look for homes in the suburbs.

In the past generation or so many American cities went through a hollowing out and now are restoring their cores. So some cities still have the destroyed downtowns that people avoid, and some have the newly attractive urban chic inner cities that everyone wants in on.

In Toronto, we managed to avoid building too many freeways into the city in the 60s and 70s and so the inner city neighbourhoods retained their value, since many affluent people realized it wouldn't be easy to commute in from the suburbs and preferred to remain near the core.

$350K is dirt cheap for a house that size. I would never want to own property so close to a low rent area. How much does it cost to heat and cool a house that old-- that large?

I think that one issue is that houses are generally quite huge that are 70- 100 years old (hence the "price"--- but of course, many have also been carved up into cheap apts.



in most urban areas you have commercial real estate in abundance and very very little housing in comparison, this skews the property values much higher, however in many many cities you can easily find very low cost apartments mixed in, Columbus is no exception, right here next door to me is a 90 yr old house or sale for $350k, 5 bedrooms-4 baths-guest house/garage in back and next to it is a 42 unit apartment building with rent in the sub $400/month range, mine is under $300 per month

and that is 1.1 miles from the center of downtown, apartments are dirt cheap, houses on commercial land are damn expensive, condos downtown are very very very expensive----the cheap ones are $138k for a very small space, the top end ones run $2 million, mid size in miranova are $338k

Now I'm confused. Sometimes I hear it's cheaper to buy in the far suburbs, something like every freeway exit you go further out saves you $10,000 on a house. Other times people say things like you can buy downtown real estate for $5 a city block. What I know is that the midtown areas in my city where it's easy to live carfree command a premium price on a square foot basis.

Okay, well some people think they can drive for free, other people know they can not:D It's probably true that every exit further out makes a house $10,000 cheaper, it's probably more then that in many places. However on a 30 year mortgage that saves you about $30,000, however in that 30 years, you have spent more on gas, more on car maintenance, and replaced the car more often.

Case in point, the exits are 5 miles apart. Now your driving at extra 10 miles a day, an extra 75,000 miles over 30 years, that's half the life of a car, half again as many oil changes, half again the maintenance, half again the cost of a new one, half again the cost of fuel, so you spent your $30,000 on the car, instead of the house.

Now comes the interesting part, time. At 40MPH that 10 miles translates into 15 minutes per day, not long, but 250 days a year, over 30 years, it's 1875 hours, few people realize it, but 40MPH is actually a very high speed, a lot of drivers would be very lucky to get an average of 20MPH, on their commute.

Now we were talking about cost, so let's monetize that, at $10/hr that's $18,750. Add that onto the $30,000 extra we spent on the car, and we actually lost money on buying the house further out. Let's not consider the cost of extra stress, and health costs from breathing exhaust fumes for hours a day.

The folks who live in mid-town or even downtown, with their 20 minute commute, 5 minute walk to the store, no parking costs at the theatre, the ability to spend much more time, with friends and family, yeah, they paid more for their residence, but figure the trade-off is worth it. Heck, I wish I lived downtown....

And I predict downtown Detroit will rise again. It will perhaps be the last of the major American cities to have a renaissance.

$350K is dirt cheap for a house that size. I would never want to own property so close to a low rent area.
This illustrates the point. The house is cheap because you (and many like-minded people) don't want to live there. But someone with a large family, who wants to live downtown so they can bike or walk to work, or a developer who hopes to replace the house with apartments and thinks he can get zoning approval, will happily snap it up at that price and hope they ultimately got a good deal.

And I predict downtown Detroit will rise again. It will perhaps be the last of the major American cities to have a renaissance.
To a minor extent, it already has happened. Those multiple high rises adjacent the river are High price condo's . Riverfront property is too valuable to waist.

And I predict downtown Detroit will rise again. It will perhaps be the last of the major American cities to have a renaissance.

With cities like Detroit that have rotted out in the core, is that when you have a lot of very low cost land and buildings, it's a lot more economical to bulldoze those tracts and rebuild. The best feature of this, is that they don't always need to rebuild it, like it was before. For example a road that had 6 lanes, with no sidewalks or bike lanes could be rebuilt with 2 MV lanes, 2 bike lanes and sidewalks, with a subway tunnel underneath..... Buildings could be more multiple use, with higher density then before, and this might be a very small area, say 1 mile by 1 mile, but as demand increases it will get larger, as the area around it, gets refurbished.

This isn't to say that all suburban areas will disappear, some of those suburbs will become new communities on their own, but the critical component is jobs, so these bedroom suburbs, with just large numbers of houses and a highway offramp, will whither up and die....

+1

No jobs, uneducated populace and rampant crime in the cities are major reasons people exited the big cities. No matter how high gas goes NO ONE will move back until the problems are fixed.

Tim

I've seen this happen first hand. Here's how it happened (and continues today) in areas like the Bronx, Brooklyn, Newark and Jersey City.

First, many of the abandoned slum homes are destroyed. I just witnessed (in the past 6 months) an ENTIRE HOUSING PROJECT in a slum bought out by developers and made into luxury condos! Once this starts happening, property taxes go through the roof making it impossible for the poor to live there. Those who do have homes sell quickly, take their profits and move on. Those same homes are raised or made into luxury condos and before you know it, the entire neighborhood is full of young upscale professionals. It takes years, sometimes decades but it can be done but the poor must be sacrificed.

There maybe no hope for Cleveland. However, the burbs are going to get very expensive for the days of cheap motoring are coming to an end. You cannot get around the fact that the world is running out of oil with no inexpensive replacement in sight. Those driving to work great distances will not be able to afford spending 20-50 percent of their income on motor transport and continue to live there. Employers will not increase wages to match the high cost of fuel so what happens in the future is anyones guess.

First, many of the abandoned slum homes are destroyed. I just witnessed (in the past 6 months) an ENTIRE HOUSING PROJECT in a slum bought out by developers and made into luxury condos! Once this starts happening, property taxes go through the roof making it impossible for the poor to live there. Those who do have homes sell quickly, take their profits and move on. Those same homes are raised or made into luxury condos and before you know it, the entire neighborhood is full of young upscale professionals. It takes years, sometimes decades but it can be done but the poor must be sacrificed.

Where I live the poor were going to be sacrificed by developers but the poor organized and fought back. The tenents formed a corporation among themselves and a few individual outside investers and bought the building. It took some compromises and deals but they did it. They had to make a deal with some investors who bought apartments that the current low income tenents could stay for life at fixed rent. The housing cooperative took out a mortgage as a corporation so that individuals with poor credit and low income could still buy shares. It worked. I have higher income lawyers and maids as neighbors. There is no way that the maids could own in this neighborhood any other way. The thing is we own the building to provide shelter for ourselves. As the outside investors sell their shares the shares fall into occupancy rules so the building becomes owner occupied. We don't profit so much by speculation as by having low shelter costs while we occupy our units. It sounds all communist and anti-american but if any of you are facing developers taking over your homes look into organizing and fighting back, you might be able to come back on top by forming your own corporation. You'll probably have to find some young do-gooder lawyers to help you. Look up housing cooperatives on the internet. The downside is that you have to stay organized to manage the property yourselves. Even if you hire a property management company for day to day operations you need to make the big decisions. The alternative would have been paying higher shelter costs to an outside corporation and having no chance to influence decisions about the property. When I look in the paper at rents for comparable places in my neighborhood they are 2-3 times what I pay.

Why is residential real estate so expensive in the older, close-in urban areas that work so well for carfree living? The houses tend to be smaller and older and yet they seem to command higher prices. Maybe this is something that's not true everywhere.

Just asking, because I really don't know much about real estate.
Location!

You pay a premium to live close to work, most cities have their business workforce concentrated in the downtown core, which makes it a desirable place to live.

Just talked to my mom. Her neighborhor's daughter works for Edwards Real Estate. She reports that in the last three months, 63,000 properties have been reposessed for the greater Detroit area. By their neighborhood, they think the banks are quite ruthless. With some miss one payment and your property is gone. So says the neighbors's daughter.

Just talked to my mom. Her neighborhor's daughter works for Edwards Real Estate. She reports that in the last three months, 63,000 properties have been reposessed for the greater Detroit area. By their neighborhood, they think the banks are quite ruthless. With some miss one payment and your property is gone. So says the neighbors's daughter.
Mass foreclosures like that are sooo 1930's. When a borrower falls behind on mortgage payments, the loan servicer should send in a crisis response team to find the defaulter a higher paying job.

My question. I witnessed so many abandoned homes when I visited Michigan last March. What used to be solid middle class homes. I'd find a couple homes per block just sitting empty for months on end. What is it the banking institution thinks they will get out of all the empty properties. Are they not on the hook for maintenance and taxes? And no prospect for selling the property. Whata use are all these empty properties to the mortgage holder? I'd think they'd be a little more tolerant. ? So many there is even no hope of renting the properties. Default sales are like fire prices. That can't be in their better interests.

My question. I witnessed so many abandoned homes when I visited Michigan last March. What used to be solid middle class homes. I'd find a couple homes per block just sitting empty for months on end. What is it the banking institution thinks they will get out of all the empty properties. Are they not on the hook for maintenance and taxes? And no prospect for selling the property. Whata use are all these empty properties to the mortgage holder? I'd think they'd be a little more tolerant. ? So many there is even no hope of renting the properties. Default sales are like fire prices. That can't be in their better interests.
I wasn't joking about the mortgage servicers taking the initiative on getting their borrowers out of financial jams. That's the only way out, and it will work only for the first few financial institutions that try it.

So why are they doing this? The property on my mom's street said the new owner only missed One payment.

So why are they doing this? The property on my mom's street said the new owner only missed One payment.
I don't know anything about real estate, but I know a little about investing in general. When the time comes, it pays to be the first one to panic. The rest of the crowd will get crushed trying to get out the door.

My question. I witnessed so many abandoned homes when I visited Michigan last March. What used to be solid middle class homes. I'd find a couple homes per block just sitting empty for months on end. What is it the banking institution thinks they will get out of all the empty properties. Are they not on the hook for maintenance and taxes? And no prospect for selling the property. Whata use are all these empty properties to the mortgage holder? I'd think they'd be a little more tolerant. ? So many there is even no hope of renting the properties. Default sales are like fire prices. That can't be in their better interests.

Sometimes it's homes where an older person lived there, died, and the family is fighting over the will, nobody wants to maintain it, because they don't want to put out cash, and then lose the fight and be out money. Banks on the other hand, may know something you don't, like a developer wants the land under those homes and will knock down the houses, so they don't care if the houses fall apart, in the mean time. There are two whole blocks near here, where every house but one, is boarded up because a developer has plans for the property, but can't start until they get the last house. The bank(s) will make money on the financing for the project and the new mortgages that will result when the project is finished, paying a few bucks on taxes for those properties, is nothing. Figure, replacing 8 old $250,000 a piece houses with 20 town homes that sell for $650,000 each is worth it, for the developer, and banks make money no matter what.....

Now mass foreclosures, after even one missed payment, that sounds like the banks want the property more then they want the money, so someone has plans for the area.

Places like Flint, other similiar towns with acres upon acres, of under utilized homes; this seems pretty unlikely. 63,000 properties tho? My mom's neighborhood. Can think of some reasons for commerical interests in the long run. Yet, there are several areas in her town which could offer similiar future commerical development potential. I think it pretty rotten that banking institution can at will change the naure of established neighborhoods. Is not zoning supposed to have a role in things like this.?

So why are they doing this? The property on my mom's street said the new owner only missed One payment.

There could be a variety of reasons:

1) The owner may be or has become a lousy credit risk, and the bank decided to cut their loses.
2) The owner lied about it only being one payment.
3) New manager at the bank, is anal about following bank policies, the policy book says one payment, foreclose, even though normally they let it go longer.
4) Bad mortgage history in the neighbourhood, people in the area who miss one payment, tend to miss a lot more, so the bank had tightened up on policy.
5) Houses in the area have really increased in value, so the bank can make money on foreclosures.
6) The owner is not a regular customer of that bank, so they don't have a financial history, the bank therefore is less inclined to try and maintain the relationship. It's different if you have been a customer of the same bank since you were 3, your accounts are all there, and even your credit card is there....

Depends on where you live. Here in Cincinnati you can buy a whole city block in the Over-The-Rhein neighborhood for $5. Most of urban Cincinnati is infested with crime. There are a few decent neighborhoods there, but not many.
The outlying areas of town here are much more valuable.

yeah, right :rolleyes: when was the last time you were anywhere close to downtown? oh yeah, going to a game at the stadiums doesn't count. people like you are the cause of urban sprawl because you refuse to do anything downtown, preferring instead to create your own imitations of downtown life way out in the exurbs.

Just so you know, OTR is quickly filling up with upscale condos and rental properties. Finding cheap real estate there is becoming quite a challenge. The crime is moving out into the inner ring older suburbs like Avondale and Western Hills. You might be "safe" out in your West Chester or Mason or where ever you live, but in a few years after your neighbors' houses are foreclosed by the bank because they got burned by those sub-prime loans, either nobody will move out there to take their place and all the stores close, or the crime will just continue to spread out there.

There could be a variety of reasons:

1) The owner may be or has become a lousy credit risk, and the bank decided to cut their loses.
2) The owner lied about it only being one payment.
3) New manager at the bank, is anal about following bank policies, the policy book says one payment, foreclose, even though normally they let it go longer.
4) Bad mortgage history in the neighbourhood, people in the area who miss one payment, tend to miss a lot more, so the bank had tightened up on policy.
5) Houses in the area have really increased in value, so the bank can make money on foreclosures.
6) The owner is not a regular customer of that bank, so they don't have a financial history, the bank therefore is less inclined to try and maintain the relationship. It's different if you have been a customer of the same bank since you were 3, your accounts are all there, and even your credit card is there....
In my mom's immediate neighborhood, like a six block square. There are now like 12 empty homes, you'd think the bank would not overreact. The one home on her street I mentioned. She said the woman lost her job.

My question. I witnessed so many abandoned homes when I visited Michigan last March. What used to be solid middle class homes. I'd find a couple homes per block just sitting empty for months on end. What is it the banking institution thinks they will get out of all the empty properties. Are they not on the hook for maintenance and taxes? And no prospect for selling the property. Whata use are all these empty properties to the mortgage holder? I'd think they'd be a little more tolerant. ? So many there is even no hope of renting the properties. Default sales are like fire prices. That can't be in their better interests.


The banks don't make their money on your mortgage payments. The banks make the money when they write the loan! Watch and learn.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money+as+debt

Why is residential real estate so expensive in the older, close-in urban areas that work so well for carfree living? The houses tend to be smaller and older and yet they seem to command higher prices. Maybe this is something that's not true everywhere.

Just asking, because I really don't know much about real estate.

They're more expensive beacuase they are in close to the center. that's what drives suburbanization - moving out to where it's cheaper.

A lot of the big cities in Texas have gone through a renaissance in the last 5 or 10 years. new people, new money, rebuilding the downtown and central areas. I know it's true for Houston, Fort Worth, Austin. Dallas is going through it now, they have more construction going on there than you'd believe. It looks like a new city being built. A lot of luxury condos and hi-rises, targeted to urban yuppies.

Mass foreclosures like that are sooo 1930's. When a borrower falls behind on mortgage payments, the loan servicer should send in a crisis response team to find the defaulter a higher paying job.

Perhaps the banks are betting on Detroit. They're scooping up as much property as they can cheaply extort from desperate clients, because they know prices will go up.

Or, maybe the banks are suffering as badly as the property owners due to giving out so many bad loans, and they're trying to cut their losses. FatA** may have some thoughts.

The population of Detroit (the city proper) went from over 2 million to about 830,000 in 40 years. The population of the metro area has grown to over 5 million, or more than half the population of Michigan.

Obviously that left a lot of abandoned houses and a big glut on the market in the city. For a while you could literally buy a nice home in Detroit for one dollar. Most of the abandoned houses were never razed by the city. Neighbors took care of that problem with the annual Devil's Night ritual, where thousands of house fires were set each October 30th. Community activism at its finest! ;)

Detroit never annexed suburban areas and never formed any regional government. Big mistake as the tax base fled the city. The actual downtown area is pretty dynamic, as others have mentioned. It's like a big theme park surrounded by miles of blight. There was a country music festival there this weekend that brought lots of "rednecks" into town.

It seems that the "inner ring" suburbs of Detroit, like Royal Oak and Madison Heights, are the area where property values are really skyrocketing. These are good carfree areas, according to a carfree friend who liin Royal Oak.

In another thread, wahoonc and I talked about starting urban farms in the D. Since then, I've read (in Deep Economy by Bill Mckibben) that people are actually doing this. At least one homesteader is growing wheat on a plot the size of an old city block, and there are some other homesteaders too.

In my mom's immediate neighborhood, like a six block square. There are now like 12 empty homes, you'd think the bank would not overreact. The one home on her street I mentioned. She said the woman lost her job.

Well, if you lose your job and miss the next payment, then your chances of missing more payments can be quite high. Banks are in business to make money, if they think they are not going to make money on a deal, they will cut their losses. Don't worry about the bank, if they lose money when they foreclose on you, they can always sue you for the difference. If you don't think so, get a microscope and read the "fine" print....

My question. I witnessed so many abandoned homes when I visited Michigan last March. What used to be solid middle class homes. I'd find a couple homes per block just sitting empty for months on end. What is it the banking institution thinks they will get out of all the empty properties. Are they not on the hook for maintenance and taxes? And no prospect for selling the property. Whata use are all these empty properties to the mortgage holder? I'd think they'd be a little more tolerant. ? So many there is even no hope of renting the properties. Default sales are like fire prices. That can't be in their better interests.

Michigan has been hammered by the loss of high paying manufacturing jobs. I remember reading recently that the Metro Detroit area has the highest mortgage default rate in the country. I have seen advertisements and news coverage of property auctions that boast hundreds of defaulted properties for sale. People in the industry say they have never seen this many properties being auctioned off at one time. With the huge supply of distressed properties, the prices they're selling for are very low. Lenders should be trying to keep people in these homes but I think in many cases, property owners just hand in the keys to the lender and walk away, perhaps off to 'greener pastures'?

Correction. Michigan has the third highest default rate in 2007, with just over 4% of mortgages in default. Texas is number two and the unfortunate winner is Mississippi with an almost 5% default rate.

Correction. Michigan has the third highest default rate in 2007, with just over 4% of mortgages in default. Texas is number two and the unfortunate winner is Mississippi with an almost 5% default rate.
Are you from Michigan? Just curious....I like to keep track of my fellow Michiganders on BF. :)

yeah, right :rolleyes: when was the last time you were anywhere close to downtown? oh yeah, going to a game at the stadiums doesn't count. people like you are the cause of urban sprawl because you refuse to do anything downtown, preferring instead to create your own imitations of downtown life way out in the exurbs.

Just so you know, OTR is quickly filling up with upscale condos and rental properties. Finding cheap real estate there is becoming quite a challenge. The crime is moving out into the inner ring older suburbs like Avondale and Western Hills. You might be "safe" out in your West Chester or Mason or where ever you live, but in a few years after your neighbors' houses are foreclosed by the bank because they got burned by those sub-prime loans, either nobody will move out there to take their place and all the stores close, or the crime will just continue to spread out there.

How about the girl who was raped, and her boyfriend beaten on the purple people bridge? Or the woman raped at broadway commons a couple months ago? Or the gang theft attacks on people parked by the stadiums? They were all over the local news. Shooting, drugs, lack of police interst or action.

And so you know, my buisness was approached last summer by city council offering to pay us to take properties to build into condos. That is why anything is being done there. The city is paying through the nose in an attempt to save the area.

Also so you know, I live with in sight of PBS and GABP.

Are you from Michigan? Just curious....I like to keep track of my fellow Michiganders on BF. :)

Born in Grand Rapids. Now in Windsor. Close enough that I could commute to my previous job in the RenCen faster than any of the other people I worked with (that include crossing the international border on the tunnel bus) - griping about the long commute was pretty very common, back in the 80's. Now I'm about 4.5 miles from the downtown core of Windsor and can see the Detroit skyline every day just across the river.

How about the girl who was raped, and her boyfriend beaten on the purple people bridge? Or the woman raped at broadway commons a couple months ago? Or the gang theft attacks on people parked by the stadiums? They were all over the local news. Shooting, drugs, lack of police interst or action.

And so you know, my buisness was approached last summer by city council offering to pay us to take properties to build into condos. That is why anything is being done there. The city is paying through the nose in an attempt to save the area.

Also so you know, I live with in sight of PBS and GABP.

Heh, I figured if I tried to call you out, you'd probably live downtown. Don't forget the pizza guy who was killed out in Hamilton, the whole Marcus Feisel thing, the cop that was shot in Addyston last summer, the "blue-eyed ******" or any of the other crimes that occurred out in the "safe" suburbs. There is crap all over, but the local media really likes to focus on downtown for some reason. (likely because of its reputation it's an easy target, and the usual suspects happen to have the wrong color of skin :rolleyes: :mad: :( )

I used to live in the Prospect Hill area, but I moved out to Eastgate to be closer to work. (I shortened my bike ride from 2 hrs to 1 hour!) I really miss downtown and truly hope it can prosper. Public opinion needs to change drastically first, however. I suspect it is similar in Detroit and many other cities too.