Posted on 04/27/2007 11:46:15 PM PDT by B-Chan
The mortgage crisis in America has deepened so much that family homes can now be bought for less than £15,200 - the price of a new car.
A four-bedroom home near the original Motown recording studio in Detroit recently sold for £3,700 ($7,000), less than most used cars. A boarded-up bungalow fetched £685, and a three-bedroom house listed for £276,000 attracted just £69,000.
Detroit, which made its fortune on the back of the car industry, now holds a more dubious distinction: the capital of home repossessions.
The decline of its main industry has seen Detroit suffer more than other areas from a crisis that is sweeping the United States and has sent a big chill through the whole economy and global stock markets.
Up to 1.5 million Americans could lose their homes in the next two years, while repossessions rose by 42 per cent in 2006. The vast majority of those at risk are borrowers hit by the sharply rising costs of "sub-prime" mortgages offered to low income buyers, often with bad credit ratings.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
And of course the city infrastructure is no good, so you'd have unreliable sewage, power, water, and street maintenance to deal with on top of everything else.
A once-great American city goes to seed...
That is because you can escape from Detroit in a car!
Detroit committed suicide decades ago...the city corpse just hasn’t stopped shaking quite yet.
No reason to live there with so many better options most *everywhere* else.
Detroit has been on the decline since the ‘67 riots.
The riots on Belle Isle were in 66. I was there just after, on leave prior to going overseas for my buddie’s sister’s wedding.
How sad. Detroit once had two million people.
Detroit had riots in 67 as well.
7K for a 4 BR??
Must be a nice neighborhood. That Invisible Hand of the Market, though, makes Motown a bit tempting.
Too bad the weather is terrible.
Nah, I’ll stick the cash in the bank.
First: That $30,000 car is many more rungs higher on the car ladder, than those houses are on the house ladder.
Second: Location, location, location! The car’s price is independent (mostly) of location; the house’s isn’t.
Third: The house is stuck in Detroit; the car, if properly defended, can get you out of town.
This says a lot more about Detroit than about the “mortgage crisis”. It also says a lot about the cost of a “bad culture”.
Reminds me of “The House at Pooh Corner” from the original books. ( Try to wipe Disney from your mind. ) Pooh et al. decide to build Eeyore a house, and after finding a pile of sticks on one side of the forest, they take them and use them to build a house on the other side of the forest. Eeyore complains that someone moved his house from one side of the forest to the other for no apparent reason.
Not sure how that fits with the Detroit story, but it does remind me of it!
Detroit should be turned back into a natural forest so we can harvest something of value in that area of the country.
Don’t know how familiar you are with the Gospel, but one wonderful and practical way for Christians to spread it is to move into these neighborhoods, in droves, and start pouring value into the community. Not spending for themselves, but giving and volunteering and meeting the community’s needs.
Heck, makes me think about retiring in one of these places, one day long from now.
1. There is no “mortgage crisis”.
2. Even if there was, Detroit’s decline has nothing to do with it.
3. Limeys suck.
Is that weird, or what? Karl Jung, where are you?
Maybe if we offer to buy the entire city, we’ll get a deep discount. Then populate the whole place with young conservatives. In 20 years, Michigan will be to the right of Utah.
In a free-market economy, things sell for what they are worth. These properties are almost worthless, therefore the selling prices...
Isn’t Michigan run by Democrats throughout the state? Aren’t they the only state in the union not to feel the benefits of the economy the last 5 years.
Why do these citizens keep voting those turds back in office.
But what about basketball? Hasn’t that been promoted as the “road out of poverty”?
Yes, but depending on the months I was either on Okinawa, Honshu, or Viet Nam. I was on Okinawa from Sept. 66, to July 67, and in Japan proper July 67 through Aug. 67. In the Nam from Sept 67 to near the end of Feb 68 (for the TET “celebrations”). Semper Fi.
Gee, but other than that it's a swell bargin. You know, "affordable housing"?
Aren’t there plenty of Muslims in Dearborn who could see this as a great opportunity? As training grounds for bombers if nothing else?
“Ahmed, we bought this house for you. Now, strap this on and pretend it’s a market...”
Probably depends on whether you can hear the mezzuin’s call to prayers or not.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/001560.php
Supply and demand. Few people want to buy a house in a high tax, high crime, dirty, filthy, noisy place dominated by racist gangs and druglords with a far-left liberal city administration.
The car lets you get out of Detroit.
Very good point
“crisis that is sweeping the United States and has sent a big chill through the whole economy and global stock markets. “
Alex is a drama queen it seems.
There's nothing wrong with Detroit that pumping a lot of federal money in to it wouldn't cure.
“Then populate the whole place with young conservatives.”
Too deadly. It would be like dropping kindergartners in at Little Bighorn.
Rather than young conservatives re-populating Detroit, I’d suggest two or three divisions of Marines, Airborne and Special Forces veterans.
Michigan also passed the Castle Doctrine last year, meaning that you can exercise deadly force to defend yourself, your family and others without some liberal prosecutor getting in your face after you whack a thug.
Now that might work better than asking peacable conservatives to immigrate to the 2nd most crime-ridden city in the nation. Conservatives and their families can move in after the area is secure.
“7K for a 4 BR??”
Jeez. These prices are falling enough that a few really big Co.’s could concievably get together and buy enough property convert whole neighborhoods or counties!
The story of Detroit’s decay is captured in brilliant photo-essays on detroityes.org — one of my favorite websites.
Republicans, not conservatives, hold the senate.
Michigan also is distinguished by owning the strongest supporters of individual rights and private property rights in the nation in its state supreme court.
Other than that, the state government is infested with filty Marxists, headed by our communist governor, who was voted back into the governor’s chair with 57% of the vote after blessing the state with the highest unemployment in the nation. Her latest campaign calls for taxing haircuts, bottled office water and fish caught in our lakes.
Everyone I talk to can’t stand this Berkeley communist, but no one will admit voting for her. Go figure.
“Detroit, which made its fortune on the back of the car industry....”
Rewrite; Detroit achieved its prosperity from the success of the U.S. auto industry. Under the current local government the city has decline much faster than have the embattled U.S. auto manufactures.
If you have the choice of buying a house in Detroit or putting your money on a single roll of the dice, head to the craps table where the odds of financial gain from your money are greatest. Ed.
sounds like iraq!
“All it took was for Mexicans to move in.”
In the inevitable fight for gang territory in the Motor City, my bet is on the Mexican gangs. They stick together. Example: Los Angeles
Butt ugly but, still, I’d seriously consider getting one IF/ when Toyota stretches it out a bit into a station wagon format.
Races in Detroit:
Population figures for Detroit
Black (81.6%)
White Non-Hispanic (10.5%)
Hispanic (5.0%)
Other race (2.5%)
Two or more races (2.3%)
American Indian (0.9%)
Crime rate 300% above national average.
How much did you say they were offering for someone to take one of those houses???
Heck, makes me think about retiring in one of these places, one day long from now.
Very Christ-like attitude. I applaud.
But Governor Granholm is SO pretty. She's just got to be good for the state. She really cares about us. She's going to raise taxes on the rich and the evil businesses to pay for job training programs so that we'll have jobs again.
/economically illiterate union rant
***Detroit should be turned back into a natural forest so we can harvest something of value in that area of the country.***
SEE! I always knew Pontiac should have won the siege in 1763!
It might still be forest!
Another area waiting for a near miss hurricane and billions of federal aid.
Oh wait state and federal $$ have already been tried for decades.
Falling home prices that had been refinanced to the maximum during the uptick, some to keep pace with 3-casino gambling expenses, is going to spell trouble for many households and individuals.
No, Belle Isle didn't have a riot, the only riot was in the city in '67.
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