Housing...

[pyat]

Attention, Slans!

Detroit has the affordable housing you need to start a Slan Commune, independent nation, religious compound, or slum!


$10 will buy you a cute bungalow..


$200 gets you this handsome 1650 square foot brick home with recent carpet and paint!

At the time I am posting this, there are 944 houses in Detroit for sale costing less than $5000. A significant number of those are under $1000.

Comments

[slwatson.livejournal.com]

::shrugs:: Having lived in such a place for seven years, you know, you'd be surprised at how well you can adapt. It's kinda funny reading some of the comments here. But, if you're down and out, it's a roof over your head -- laugh about it, sure. But someday, you (general) may be there. And you'll live.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I'm bemused at the absurdity of a market where a house can be had for $10. The copper in the wires is worth more. The bricks are worth more. The fixtures... etc., etc. They appear to be very nice houses, though I suppose they might be in bad shape inside. Even if they are, it's like seeing someone sell a gold ring for a penny. The intrinsic value of the house is substantially more.

In a larger sense, you could find a neighbourhood in, say, Winnipeg, or Saskatoon, with similar socioeconomic indicators and crime levels (with even with higher crime rates in some places), and even a burned out wreck or a vacant lot would sell for $30K. About ten houses down from me is a little bungalow in much rougher shape than the one in the first pic. Two years ago, there was a double murder/suicide there, and the inhabitants were drug dealers.

A few months after the murders, it was on the market for $70K, and it got snapped up. Go figure.

Addressing your comment a bit more directly! Certainly, one does adapt. There is no where in North America that is totally untenable, nowhere unlivable. There is nowhere I can think of that I would not live, if I had to make a living there.

That said, there are currently 50,000 empty or abandoned homes in Detroit. Thousands have already been bulldozed and turned into vacant lots, and as we see, hundreds more are being sold for desperately low prices. Presumably, the residents got sick of the status quo, or found their situation untenable for some other reason.

[slwatson.livejournal.com]

Housing down here tends to follow vastly different trends. My house in Youngstown, which I still own, was $2400.00 and kept the rain off for seven years. The same house, if you moved it about five miles to the West would be worth 30K or so. But crime tends to keep people out of the city.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

You can probably get some sort of job easier in those other places, even if it would be a really crappy job.

[kianir.livejournal.com]

It's worth reiterating and interjecting Detroit's unemployment rate (in January, and things have not improved with the continued auto uncertainty) was 22.2%. A lot of houses in Detroit are simply abandoned -- the owners picked up and left town without bothering to sell the place, either because they owed too much, it was worthless, or what have you.

And, bit by bit, the scrappers are bringing the intrinsic value of these vacant structures down to their market value. Right along with the occupied ones. Just a couple weeks ago a coworker of mine who lives in the city (five, six miles from her) had the telephone line to his house scrapped. He has also lost numerous high-value car parts off his cars, like the catalytic converter and wheels, over the last couple years. It's really depressing to watch his neighborhood slide; they're huge, beautiful houses and big yards flush with trees.

[kianir.livejournal.com]

.. miles from *here*.