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As Foreclosures Rise, Houses in Detroit Cheaper Than Cars
foxnews/reuters ^ | Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Posted on 03/20/2007 12:34:45 PM PDT by pleikumud

DETROIT — With bidding stalled on some of the least desirable residences in Detroit's collapsing housing market, even the fast-talking auctioneer was feeling the stress.

"Folks, the ground underneath the house goes with it. You do know that, right?" he offered.

After selling house after house in the Motor City for less than the $29,000 it costs to buy the average new car, the auctioneer tried a new line: "The lumber in the house is worth more than that!"

Click here to visit FOXBusiness.com's Real Estate Center.

As Detroit reels from job losses in the U.S. auto industry, the depressed city has emerged as a boomtown in one area: foreclosed property.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Michigan
KEYWORDS: crime; detroit; housing; housingbubble; prices
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This is similar to the situation in New Orleans. Can't sell a house where nobody wants to live - where the streets are filled with filth and violent criminals.

Auto industry job losses are the result of unions killing productivity, innovation, and profitabiity, as well as poor management.

1 posted on 03/20/2007 12:34:46 PM PDT by pleikumud
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To: pleikumud

Imagine that - no one wants to live in the most liberal city in America - funny...


2 posted on 03/20/2007 12:36:40 PM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2banana

Gee Whiz! The auto industry wouldn't be suffering so badly if they'd just give more money to the unions!! ~sarc


3 posted on 03/20/2007 12:38:02 PM PDT by albie
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To: pleikumud

If someone on a fixed income wants to own a house, I'm sure they can get a good deal.


4 posted on 03/20/2007 12:42:10 PM PDT by P-40 (Al Qaeda was working in Iraq. They were just undocumented.)
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To: pleikumud

Great time to move in and gentrify!


5 posted on 03/20/2007 12:42:57 PM PDT by Lorianne
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To: Lorianne

Not with my money! :)-


6 posted on 03/20/2007 12:45:03 PM PDT by pleikumud
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To: pleikumud

I love the cheese weasel passive voice language of the dolt reporter. For example, "..The city, which has lost more than half its population in the past 30 years ..." Lost? Lost? Like the people were there a minute ago, and are now gone? Like half the population is on a missing persons report? How about using the action verbs of 'fled, escaped, ran away, walked away, crawled away, drove flew or swam away'. But no, the people are just.....missing. No reason, no judgement, no history, no cause and effect. Just some passive event.


7 posted on 03/20/2007 12:48:01 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: pleikumud
Interesting place to relocate.

how long until the moslems start buying these places up and relocating?

8 posted on 03/20/2007 12:48:42 PM PDT by Centurion2000 (If you're not being shot at, it's not a high stress job.)
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To: pleikumud

For sale: lovely 2 bedroom condo in Palm Harbor, FL with free golf in 55+ active community. $148,900 Seriously. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?


9 posted on 03/20/2007 12:52:01 PM PDT by itslex71 (southern by birth, republican by the grace of my dad)
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To: Lorianne

Good luck, let me know how it goes. I wouldn't take 29,000.00 plus the house if it were located in Detroit.


10 posted on 03/20/2007 12:52:22 PM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: pleikumud

"Folks, the ground underneath the house goes with it. You do know that, right?"

The trouble is that Detroit goes with the house! What a rat hole of a place.


11 posted on 03/20/2007 12:53:49 PM PDT by White Bear ("Una salus victus nullam sperare salutem" - The one hope of the doomed is not to hope for safety.)
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To: White Bear

You could bulldoze many of those homes, and make more money from the spent lead you'll find in the walls....

A hit piece, with no explanation of WHY the crap home that has been sitting empty for a DECADE (and was bought/sold 10 times in a minority mortgage scam) went for that price...

On the bright side, a disabled, fixed income friend bought a like home in Indy for $10,000, spent $5,000 to repair it, and now has a home she can AFFORD....


12 posted on 03/20/2007 12:59:24 PM PDT by tcrlaf (VOTE DEM! You'll Look GREAT In A Burqa!)
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To: P-40
"If someone on a fixed income wants to own a house, I'm sure they can get a good deal."

Yeah, if they got terminal cancer, a boat load of guns and want to go out like Custer.

13 posted on 03/20/2007 1:00:03 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: pleikumud
I wouldn't live in that cesspool if you gave me a mansion.
14 posted on 03/20/2007 1:02:47 PM PDT by Lacey13
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To: pleikumud

Now if I could buy a house and have it shipped to my land here in Idaho cheaper then just buying a house here then I'll get on the phone to the real estate guys in Detroit.


15 posted on 03/20/2007 1:07:02 PM PDT by Domandred
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To: Leisler
Michigan was the only state to see home prices fall in 2006. The national average price rose almost 6 percent but prices slipped 0.4 percent here, according to a federal study. The state's jobless rate of 7.1 percent in January was also the second highest in the nation, behind only Mississippi.

"Once we've seen the last person leave Michigan, then I think we'll be able to say we've seen the bottom," he said.

All thanks to a Governor who is an air-head, Barbie doll ice queen, that actually thinks socialism works. She is Canadian born, dontcha know. Thank God she can't be president.

16 posted on 03/20/2007 1:11:32 PM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus Reagan
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To: Centurion2000

"Relocate???" Muslims all ready make a sizeable minority in and around Detroit. If you were there now you could probably hear any number of local Muslim clerics talking to Saudi bankers telling them how easy it would be for Saudi Arabia to "buy Detroit".


17 posted on 03/20/2007 1:17:10 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Ronaldus Magnus Reagan
It's the same in New York, Massachusetts, that I know of.

In Mass, not only are we losing population, but the numbers are kept from being worse by importing third world poverty cases to keep the school seats warm, the emergency rooms filled and the police busy. Meanwhile the productive people from cooks to surgeons pack up and head to a southern Red state.
18 posted on 03/20/2007 1:18:30 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: pleikumud

Supply and demand. Buying a house in Detroit means that you will live in a city that is a failure thanks to an ultra liberal government. No one wants to buy a house in Detroit. Buying a car means that you can get out of Detroit. Everyone wants to buy a car in Detroit.

Get rid of the liberal administration, expel the proponents of the ideology of death and destruction, and Detroit would be a decent place again.


19 posted on 03/20/2007 1:25:18 PM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: pleikumud
29 pages of FedGov 'homes' in lovely MoTown. Click here"
20 posted on 03/20/2007 1:26:45 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: Leisler

I think of Massachusetts as the place where voters are so dumb they keep re-electing Kerry, Kennedy and Frank (etc.) I suppose there are other States close to being so lunatic, but MA stands out, with high taxes, lousy weather, the Big Dig, and a socialist business climate.


21 posted on 03/20/2007 1:28:00 PM PDT by pleikumud
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged
All you need to do is read Atlas Shrugged.
22 posted on 03/20/2007 1:33:24 PM PDT by libstripper (AS)
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To: tcrlaf

"On the bright side, a disabled, fixed income friend bought a like home in Indy for $10,000, spent $5,000 to repair it, and now has a home she can AFFORD...."

What's the neighborhood like?

Usually a 'hood like that looks like, well, it looks like the 'hood.


23 posted on 03/20/2007 1:34:33 PM PDT by webstersII
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To: webstersII

It does...

But the blacks are being forced out by the Mexicans..


24 posted on 03/20/2007 1:36:22 PM PDT by tcrlaf (VOTE DEM! You'll Look GREAT In A Burqa!)
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To: tcrlaf

I just meant what is the crime rate like, not the racial mix.

Usually that's the deal breaker in a place like that.


25 posted on 03/20/2007 1:37:24 PM PDT by webstersII
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To: Centurion2000
how long until the moslems start buying these places up and relocating?

Already are, and have been for quite some time. The Islamic population is one of the few demographics that have grown in the Detroit area in recent times.

26 posted on 03/20/2007 1:42:01 PM PDT by TheBattman (I've got TWO QUESTIONS for you....)
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To: pleikumud

N.Y. has been that way for years that's why I lit out of there thirty years ago. Just look who they elect for senators!


27 posted on 03/20/2007 1:47:00 PM PDT by scottteng (Proud parent of a Star scout.)
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To: Domandred

They can move houses.


28 posted on 03/20/2007 1:49:18 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Heus, hic nos omnes in agmine sunt! Deo volente rivoque non adsurgente)
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To: Lorianne
Great time to move in and gentrify!

Bring lots of guns and ammo, and put plate steel in the outside walls during the remodel!

29 posted on 03/20/2007 1:55:17 PM PDT by Disambiguator (If it sounds to good to be true, it's probably sarcasm.)
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To: Leisler
"Yeah, if they got terminal cancer, a boat load of guns and want to go out like Custer."

Thank you for making me laugh so hard my ribs hurt.

30 posted on 03/20/2007 1:58:40 PM PDT by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: webstersII

It's high, but it's not Detroit...

But is IS a $10,000 house, that she OWNS outright...


31 posted on 03/20/2007 1:58:47 PM PDT by tcrlaf (VOTE DEM! You'll Look GREAT In A Burqa!)
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To: TASMANIANRED

Well, given that folks are moving their dead relatives out of Detroit, maybe you have hit on a new business idea.

Put the house on a barge, and it can be moved anywhere on the Great lakes and plunked down somewhere else.

We could call it "urban mining."


32 posted on 03/20/2007 2:00:04 PM PDT by patton (ETS? Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.)
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To: pleikumud
Detroit! They would have to give away free houses and throw in a gun to get people to move there.
33 posted on 03/20/2007 2:05:29 PM PDT by fish hawk (The religion of Darwinism = Monkey Intellect)
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To: Lorianne

Sure, YOU go 'gentrify' the Cass corridor!


34 posted on 03/20/2007 2:07:28 PM PDT by Yo-Yo (USAF, TAC, 12th AF, 366 TFW, 366 MG, 366 CRS, Mtn Home AFB, 1978-81)
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To: patton

In liberal-land, this is what will save Detroit: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=72651


35 posted on 03/20/2007 2:10:05 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: patton

Costs $8K to 40K depending on size and distance.

http://www.servicemagic.com/task.Professional-Moving-Service-Entire-House-Structure.40334.html

Can match you to qualified house mover.


36 posted on 03/20/2007 2:35:37 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Heus, hic nos omnes in agmine sunt! Deo volente rivoque non adsurgente)
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To: Southack

"Michael Lashbrook, president of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association, said he believes Granholm and the Legislature ultimately will reject a beer or wine tax increase because it would make Michigan less competitive with its neighbors and retard job growth in one of the only dynamic sectors of the state's economy - entertainment and tourism."

LOLOLOL - yet, they see no connection to taxes and businesses fleeing the state...


37 posted on 03/20/2007 2:38:43 PM PDT by patton (ETS? Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.)
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To: pleikumud

Seems to me that Detroit is ripe for a Giuliani/Schundler type mayor. It's now or never.


38 posted on 03/20/2007 2:39:07 PM PDT by Gunder
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To: patton

Every blue city-state that's in decline does the same thing: scream for more taxes.

Then they act put-out that more businesses have fled their city.

It's a mental illness; they can't see cause and effect.


39 posted on 03/20/2007 2:42:51 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: TASMANIANRED

Purchase, $20k
Relocation, $40k
Rehab, $100k

Have to be worth $200k for it to be worthwhile, I guess

On the other hand, once the house was moved, you could sign the land over to Greenpeace, take the tax deduction, screw detroit out of the property taxes, and LYAO as Greenpeace gets stuck with the liability on the property...


40 posted on 03/20/2007 2:44:59 PM PDT by patton (ETS? Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.)
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To: Southack

No kidding. I have heard everything on the sun blamed for MI's sorry state, except the true cause - GOVERNMENT.

It is of interest to note that houses in Bagdad are worth more than those in detroit.


41 posted on 03/20/2007 2:47:35 PM PDT by patton (ETS? Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.)
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To: tcrlaf
But is IS a $10,000 house, that she OWNS outright...

Only as long as she can afford to pay the property taxes...

42 posted on 03/20/2007 2:47:39 PM PDT by muffaletaman
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To: pleikumud
Just think if all that money/time/effort we are spending to rebuild Baghdad,,,,could be spent to rebuild Detroit, instead.

Nahhhhhhh,,,,,never mind. Baghdad is easier.

43 posted on 03/20/2007 2:50:14 PM PDT by stockstrader ("Where government advances--and it advances relentlessly--freedom is imperiled"-Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged
Get rid of the liberal administration, expel the proponents of the ideology of death and destruction, and Detroit would be a decent place again.

*snort!*

It ain't gonna happen.

The best thing that could happen to Detroit is to make it a landfill for the surrounding states and charge by the ton to dump.

At least then it would have some economic future, all the abandoned crack needles wouldn't have to be cleaned up, and the rats wouldn't have to work as hard to find something to eat.

44 posted on 03/20/2007 3:01:14 PM PDT by Gritty (The all powerful state severs man from the primal impulses including the survival impulse-Mark Steyn)
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To: Leisler

You are very right. It's looking thru that same lens that gave the "9/11 tragedy" instead of mass murder in a sneak attack.


45 posted on 03/20/2007 3:50:14 PM PDT by 2nd Bn, 11th Mar (The "P" in Democrat stands for patriotism.)
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To: patton

100k for rehab seems a little high.


46 posted on 03/20/2007 4:38:45 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Heus, hic nos omnes in agmine sunt! Deo volente rivoque non adsurgente)
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To: TASMANIANRED

lead abatement, asbestos abatement...


47 posted on 03/20/2007 4:42:14 PM PDT by patton (ETS? Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.)
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To: patton

Depends on how old the house is...

Lead paint can be sealed. It doesn't have to be removed.


48 posted on 03/20/2007 5:12:55 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Heus, hic nos omnes in agmine sunt! Deo volente rivoque non adsurgente)
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To: TASMANIANRED

Not in MI, as I recall - it must be removed.

Other places, other rules - and most houses one would want to move would predate 1976(?), when lead stopped being used in paint.

I do have a friend, BTW, who buys houses in detroit, strips out the wainscoting, mantles, mirrors, and other details, and sells them at a huge profit elsewhere.

He also calls that "urban mining."

Some of those houses are - or were - glorious mansions, and really have woodwork that you can't buy today.

Sad.


49 posted on 03/20/2007 5:27:47 PM PDT by patton (ETS? Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.)
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To: patton

Urban mining is a distinct possibility.


50 posted on 03/20/2007 5:37:14 PM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Heus, hic nos omnes in agmine sunt! Deo volente rivoque non adsurgente)
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