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Wow. Houses selling for a dollar-- this is where the economy is at!  

post #1 of 34
1/9/09 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
So DH showed me last night the Countrywide house foreclosure website-- [the link didn't work-- go to countrywide.com, then go to "Find a Home", then under that you will see the option "REO Property". Under that page you can do a national search for homes in a specific area.] --and they really do have some homes in Detroit and the Detroit area (yep ) selling for a dollar! As well as several for $80, and tons for just a few thousand, etc etc. CRAZY. I never thought I would really SEE that.

I kind of wish I had the capital to buy up some of these properties, fix them up a bit (they need it!) and sit on them for a few years. But we totally don't. At all.

So I just had to share. Maybe someone else can benefit from this as an investment opportunity of some sort. I mean, the prices are bound to go up at SOME point, right? (Right?) It's crazy!

We didn't look at any other areas of the country-- just that one. Incidentally we do not live anywhere near Detroit, we were just curious what with recent events and all. I wonder if any other areas have been hit so hard? Oh, DH said real estate in parts of Ohio was pretty bad too, I guess. I didn't look though.
post #2 of 34
1/9/09 at 3:49pm
Do you have to make an account for it to work? I'm not finding the "find a home" option anywhere.
post #3 of 34
1/9/09 at 3:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LionTigerBear View Post
So DH showed me last night the Countrywide house foreclosure website-- http://www.countrywide.com/purchase/f_reo.asp-- and they really do have some homes in Detroit and the Detroit area (yep ) selling for a dollar! As well as several for $80, and tons for just a few thousand, etc etc. CRAZY. I never thought I would really SEE that.

I kind of wish I had the capital to buy up some of these properties, fix them up a bit (they need it!) and sit on them for a few years. But we totally don't. At all.

So I just had to share. Maybe someone else can benefit from this as an investment opportunity of some sort. I mean, the prices are bound to go up at SOME point, right? (Right?) It's crazy!

We didn't look at any other areas of the country-- just that one. Incidentally we do not live anywhere near Detroit, we were just curious what with recent events and all. I wonder if any other areas have been hit so hard? Oh, DH said real estate in parts of Ohio was pretty bad too, I guess. I didn't look though.

Crazy...more like tragic!

I feel the need to place what you saw in context. I live in Michigan, in the capital of Lansing, to be specific. The housing market tanked a couple years ago here. There are thousands, many thousands of foreclosed homes in my town. The local paper recently published a list of homes that have overdue city taxes...it went on for pages and pages. The unemployment rate was 28% last summer. This state has led the nation in unemployment for years...And people have the gall to say that the auto industry should collapse or that auto workers should take more concessions?! Let me be clear, that it's not just people in the auto industry that have been loosing jobs, either! These unemployment rates were months before the proverbial s- hit the fan in October. People are moving away in droves due to job losses. Empty houses stand on every street like decaying corpses. Two dilapidated houses were demolished on my block in the last year, but there are so many that the city can't keep up with them.

THIS is the situation I've been trying to get across to people for the last year! Business men won't be happy until this whole country is third-world, like Michigan.

...sorry, but this is very real and upsetting to me! I LIVE this tragedy!
post #4 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by JessicaTX View Post
Do you have to make an account for it to work? I'm not finding the "find a home" option anywhere.
You know, I'm not sure. Try googling "countrywide foreclosure"-- I was able to find the page easily that way. I don't know why my link wasn't working.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slsurface View Post
Crazy...more like tragic!

I feel the need to place what you saw in context. ......

THIS is the situation I've been trying to get across to people for the last year! Business men won't be happy until this whole country is third-world, like Michigan.

...sorry, but this is very real and upsetting to me! I LIVE this tragedy!
Thank you for sharing your experience. I had no idea it was so bad there. I mean, SO bad. Very eye-opening . . .
post #5 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:10pm
oh, wow....and my neighbors think the housing market is bad because their house hasn't sold. They originally had it listed at $900K and recently dropped it to $660. It's a super nice house, though, so it's a pretty dramatic price decrease.

Housing here is cheaper than many parts of the country but I've seen a few brand new houses in my 'hood sit empty for the past year - so even with dropping the cost, it must be hard to sell.

our unemployment rate is rising, too, I just don't know how bad it is now.
post #6 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:13pm
There ARE, still, expensive houses for sale in Michigan. But it has always had low property values compared to most of the rest of the country, so when the housing market tanked nationwide, it hit Michigan especially.
post #7 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lolar2 View Post
But it has always had low property values compared to most of the rest of the country, so when the housing market tanked nationwide, it hit Michigan especially.
No, I don't think so. This is not the reason that the housing market crashed.

Actually, the cost of living here is very high compared to wages. In fact, the cost of living in Michigan is probably the highest in the Midwest/Great Lakes region. The real problem is that I watched speculators buy and sell houses over and over again in the last five years...I saw one home in my last neighborhood on the market 6 times in one year (each time with a new owner)! All this speculating raised home prices above what people could afford. Then mortgage companies encouraged people to take loans they could not afford. This was ok for a while, but the people started loosing their jobs. People have been loosing jobs here for a while...when no work could be found, they move away. Houses that used to sell for $300K are now selling for $40K or sitting empty in the snow.
post #8 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:30pm
My BIL is looking to find a house for his son under one of these REO thingies in or near Springfield, MA (that's right, right?). He's a good man and says he feels really uneasy about "taking advantage of someone's pain," but he's a new widow looking to provide for his son. They are both carpenters and could do well with a fixer-upper. I suggested that if they find a really ridiculously low price on a house, they could make a really substantial donation to a charity like Habitat for Humanity or something--some way of acknowledging the people who lost so badly in this. He was pretty receptive to this idea, but I don't know.
post #9 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:35pm
I live in Detroit, inside the actual city limits, and I agree, it's bad. The COL is sky high the (my gas bill was 740 dollars last month) jobs are sparse, and even though my husband has a job where in any other part of the country (excepting very high income areas) we'd be considered lower middle class, we're struggling pretty hard core.

My sister just bought a two bed room brick house with a garage and a sunroom for 5k. The only work that it needed was a coat of paint in the living room. The owner was heartbroken.

Id give just about anything to get out of here, but it's impossible to save when you need every dime to survive.
post #10 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:35pm
Detroit, MI has had 50% drop in population from its peak - so there is surplus housing, and therefore low, low pricing. Cleveland OH has had low cost houses for the past few years also.
post #11 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:40pm
I think you had an extra dash in the link, does this work?
http://www.countrywide.com/purchase/f_reo.asp

There have always been places with cheap houses, especially small towns in the midwest. The reason, of course, for the low price is because wages in the area don't support higher housing prices.
post #12 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SleeplessMommy View Post
Detroit, MI has had 50% drop in population from its peak
Yep. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11226284

Even the dead are leaving Detroit. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...RO08/808120367
post #13 of 34
1/9/09 at 4:45pm
Sorry to hijack your thread OP.
post #14 of 34
1/9/09 at 5:07pm
The COL in Michigan is high overall, but statewide in terms of housing prices, it tends to be on the low side.
post #15 of 34
1/9/09 at 5:17pm
would it be worthless to buy one and just not fix it up and possibly resell later?
I'm assuming you still would have to pay property taxes?
is there any reason not to buy a house for $1?? ( i live 10 min from detroit)
post #16 of 34
1/9/09 at 5:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lolar2 View Post
The COL in Michigan is high overall, but statewide in terms of housing prices, it tends to be on the low side.
That's because the most of the state is wilderness. Hardly anyone lives in the northern portion of the Lower peninsula or the Upper peninsula. In the cities, where most people live, housing is quite expensive for what you get.
post #17 of 34
1/9/09 at 6:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by slsurface View Post
This was so interesting to me. I have heard of the movie "Eight Mile" but had no idea what it was about. When I first started reading, I thought, are you serious? People are spending money to move dead people??? But, wow... They are literally afraid for their lives, to go visit the cemetery. So sad.
post #18 of 34
1/9/09 at 6:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by neveryoumindthere View Post
would it be worthless to buy one and just not fix it up and possibly resell later?
I'm assuming you still would have to pay property taxes?
is there any reason not to buy a house for $1?? ( i live 10 min from detroit)
An unoccupied house could quickly contain drug dealers, etc. "Cleanup" could be a problem. Homeowners insurance (liability etc) is not easily available for unoccupied dwellings.
post #19 of 34
1/9/09 at 7:10pm
Quote:
"To tell you the truth, yes, it's fear," Palazzolo said. "Have you been to Detroit? I pray the car doesn't break down. I cringe when I drive down Gratiot. I'm worried for my life. There's a lot of bad people in Detroit. But to tell you the truth, there's a lot of bad people out here. But at least we're closer this way."
This made me want to cry. Gratiot Ave is home to me. I go to the farmers market on one end of it's 30 mile stretch. When people ride by, there walking past me. I am the woman walking down the street with the granny cart full of fruit and veggies, that's my family at the CVS on the corner, those are my kids that people cringe when they see them dribbling their basketballs at dusk. We're the ones that people are afraid of? This is what makes you worry for your life? We're just like everyone else. We're just trying to get by.
post #20 of 34
1/9/09 at 7:36pm
Wow... just plain crazy. There are some here in Ohio listed for under a hundred dollars, and they are duplexs~ Just crazy and sad. But one thing to check into is to see if they have any tax liens on them... that could cost a fortune. And an empty home can hold many issues..... you would want to really look into it before investing.
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