One of the more amazing things we've seen during this whole economic stuff is that apparently in Detroit you can buy a house for $7500. Of course our first instinct upon hearing this is probably to laugh, and sneer at Detroit "Detroit sucks!!"
But then I think of my own neighborhood here in Brooklyn. 15-20 years ago, nobody wanted to live here, leading to a mix of huge industrial buildings and clumps of houses with people who had been here for decades. Then artists found out they could live here dirt cheap in huge spaces, very convenient for things like painting, or having a band etc etc. Then after a while, young professionals started moving in, attracted to the kind of "bohemian industrial realness" the area had to offer. Long story short, the neighborhood quickly became flooded with rich Manhattanites wanting to own in a "cool" area, every industrial warehouse has been turned into fancy condos, and people were selling their old, run-down houses for millions. I know of one couple who about 12 years ago bought a house for $200k, and 5 years ago sold it for about $1.5M and are retired in CA under the age of 40. So if this can happen here, it seems remotely possible the same thing could happen now in Detroit. Which means instead of laughing at Detroit, I should be fucking buying a house there.
1 comment:
Yeah, everyone's got a Brooklyn story of that nature: my friend's parents bought a house in Ft. Greene for $80K in the mid '80s that they recently sold for millions; around the same time, my cousin had the chance to buy a Park Slope building for $24K, now also worth millions; a barely earning above minimum wage co-worker landed a Williamsburg loft for $400/mo. in the early '90s, etc etc etc.
But the difference between Brooklyn then and Detroit today, seems to me, that the latter's economy does not seem to have any jobs. You can buy a house in Buffalo for twice as much as Detroit but it's not really bursting with job opportunities up there, either.
Of course, if you have the money, you can buy up property and wait till it blows up in value. But Detroit's been in a major decline for a very, very long time.
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