Detroit will pay you to take one of its houses

Photo by Kevin Bauman. See more of Kevin's stunning photos of abandoned Detroit homes.

Mayor Dave Bing is trying to save Detroit by offering incentives to lure residents back to abandoned neighborhoods. One program offers $150,000 in housing renovation money and requiring only $1,000 down to police officers who are willing to relocate to the city. Another offers college graduates $2,500 to rent and $20,000 forgivable loan to buy properties. Potential home buyers can choose from plenty of cheap or free homes, especially in the blighted neighborhoods of Woodward Ave. and Brush Park.

Detroit Will PAY You To Take One Of These 100 Abandoned Homes

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Prufrock451

A new life awaits you in Detroit! A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!
Anonymous

I like the idea of offering police free housing to move into tough neighborhoods. That house is BEAUTIFUL.
AGC

We’ve all become migrants now. Roaming from city to city following the jobs.
awfl

Big deal they give you the razor; it is the cost of blades they want from you. Do you realize the cost of living in a place like Detroit or most anywhere in Michigan? Lower than some, but not based upon costs and services you receive, or there are few(er) opportunities for work, or sell your property when comes time. Even if they give you the place free, repair labor, property and business taxes are some of the very highest; they give these places away because it allows them keep them from deflating the housing market, keeping up their exaggerated, inflated property tax revenue stream.
- Ceronomus
  
  Inflated house market? I’ve seen houses for as low as $5k in Detroit. What inflated market are YOU looking at?
  - awfl
    
    I was referring to the way Michigan (not necessarily just Detroit) had it’s home equalizations peaking in, what, 2006 (Case-Schiller), with all that new inflated tax revenue flowing in. The State/Counties/Cities have done everything they can, including not adding certain homes (like repos, and likely using such house giveaways) to the tax calculations, attempting to prevent dilution of neighboring property values and subsequent loss of tax revenue. Regardless of the sale price of said “free” house, the next year property taxes are most certainly are not simply increased just to Detroit’s low retail “market value”, but the way I understand it Michigan considers property value not just by actual dollar sale, but alternately looks at other measures, like construction/rebuild/material costs and intrinsic value. Another way; if a building is abandoned, they have no one to bill and get nothing; give it away, the taxes almost certainly shoot way up the next year, above the (very low Detroit) retail market value. Just Beware, that is all.
Stjohn

Most of these places are completely indefensible. Not enough firing positions and no outer walls capable of stopping small arms rounds. Some of them have enough space to house round-the-clock watches of roommates, but you still need some kind of security perimeter with inner and outer gates.

But really, it’s mostly what awfl said, and a need to reform laws and regulations burned in by decades of back and forth between unions and big industry. However, on the plus side, Michigan has some of the best public mental health and substance abuse recovery programs in the country, plus you have access to fresh water (lots of it), and food (lots of ag and game).

Winter sucks there though. And the salt they put on the roads will dissolve your vehicle like it’s a Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
RedShirt77

How much do they pay to drive a 1980′s car?
Alvis

Business Insider link is dead
Anonymous

Maybe the characters from Portlandia can all emigrate to Detroititus ?
Bill Albertson

Here is the right link, probably the end got chopped off:

http://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-houses-detroit-2011-2
gwailo_joe

Fallen, fallen is Babylon. . .

What a shame: hope some handy people can fix ‘em up.
kasinator79

I’ll take one if it comes with three busted Oldsmobiles.
Anonymous

The burnt up hous might be the cheepest to rehab. Not much to figure out behind walls or materials to match just plan and build.

Foundation might be good.
subhan

Any chance I could actually get a job in Detroit?
- bobthecitizen
  
  There are a ton of job openings in home based pharmaceutical distribution.
GIFtheory

I know one cop who would love to move back to Detroit. Sadly, incentives have been denied him.
Glossolalia Black

Anyone wanna Kickstart a bullet train maker in the guts of old Motor City? Maybe the factories could be retrofitted for such a thing. And then a bunch of people could move nearby. And urband farming, and, and, and….

And everyone’s so busy doing basic hand-to-mouth survival up there that even the good ideas sound unworkable, somehow.
ROSSINDETROIT

People who can do their jobs from basically any phisical location should consider moving to Detroit. For the price of a NY parking place you can have a Rosedale Park mansion. With an elevator. I am not exaggerating.
Anonymous

Some of those places would look great all fixed up, but I have no reason to move to Detroit.
anharmyenone

A city killed by unions and socialism. Ever notice that most of the population-gaining states are “right to work” states? I feel sorry for people living in Detroit, a city that committed suicide. The meanest thing we could do would be to pretend that they can turn things around without rejecting unions and wealth redistribution once and for all. (unless it’s Henry George style LVT, which would be okay)
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  I usually don’t say this, but why don’t you go pound sand. You don’t know this town and you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
  - jmcgarry
    
    Hear, hear!
- gwailo_joe
  
  Dang son, I understand where you are coming from. . .
  
  But was not Detroits’ demise due to lack of foresight and hubris of the higher-ups, as much or more so than the greed of the unions?
- Promethean Sky
  
  A city killed by unions and socialism. Ever notice that most of the population-gaining states are “right to work” states?
  
  Seriously? It has nothing to do with the fact that the Detroit economy is/was primarily based around manufacturing automobiles? An expensive good that is one of the first things people put off buying when the economy tanks. That’s on top of foreign manufacturers whittling away at the market for decades.
  
  I’m not saying that a lot of the problems aren’t self inflicted either as a state (we’re still riding out damage from when Engler was Governor two administrations ago) or in the auto industries where all sorts of systemic mistakes were made. What I am saying is that “unions and socialism” don’t even make the list of causes for the people living here.
  
  Let’s not forget the mass depopulation which has made city services more expensive per taxpayer. Water mains, road repairs, snow plowing, police patrols, etc…
- Anonymous
  
  Not to feed the troll, but rejecting wealth redistribution is encouraging kingdoms and serfdoms.
  
  How should working people turn things around? Since unions don’t help, what does?
  
  I’m serious.
  - anharmyenone
    
    “Not to feed the troll, but rejecting wealth redistribution is encouraging kingdoms and serfdoms.
    How should working people turn things around? Since unions don’t help, what does?
    I’m serious.”
    
    For the macro picture, I gave you a clue with Henry George.
    
    Now for the micro situation of the individual person or family, here’s another clue; look to examples like Korean grocers and other immigrants who arrive in America with little more than the clothes on their backs and by working long hours and living frugally eventually achieve the American Dream.
    
    Now look to people who win the lottery and within a few years have nothing to show for it. It isn’t that some people are “better than others”, they’re not. All people have the same intrinsic worth and dignity endowed by their creator. It is just that value systems and lifestyles and habits determine economic outcomes much more than circumstances in a place like the USA. (Mexico and other places where “crony capitalism” rules are a different story.)
    
    In short, the first step to material prosperity or to keeping material prosperity is to be a miser with money, not try to keep up with the Joneses or to impress people, not try to seek “status”, but quietly and miserly sock it away. Let people think you are poor with your thrift store clothes and beater car and tiny apartment while your bank account grows. You won’t be eating pizza, you’ll be eating beans and rice for a while. You won’t be watching cable or Netflix, you’ll be checking out books from the library to teach yourself things to get and keep money. You’ll be exercising like you always knew you should. You’ll thank your higher power every day for every blessing you have, knowing that 90% of the world is worse off than you.
    
    Any financial advisor will advise a savings plan by saying “pay yourself first” as in put away savings first before budgeting the rest. You have the eye of the tiger for finances now just like Rocky had it for boxing. You are the quiet hero who will never be on the cover of Time. You will never join the country club or hang out with the useless upper class twits. You will choose a mate with the same values. Together, you will be an unstoppable force that almost no one will ever know about. The real financial success stories are not the Donald Trumps of the world, they are the people you never hear about.
    - jonw
      
      Best comment I’ve seen in a while.
    - UncaScrooge
      
      You just described my personal lifestyle most exactingly: frugal, miserly and unconcerned with exterior appearances. Unfortunately, where I live the cost of living has accelerated to the point where mimicking poverty is simply poverty without end.
      
      Still, I do get to enjoy the fierce moral satisfaction of dying honestly poor and without assets after a lifetime of labor. I may look down my nose at the idiots who play the lottery. Cold comfort: I’d throw my furniture on the fire if I had any.
- IronEdithKidd
  
  I agree with Ross, you’re talking out your ass.
Anonymous

It wasn’t unions, it was crappy cars that killed Detroit.

I once owned a General Motors automobile. Emphasis on the “once”.
Anonymous

How much will they pay me to live in that car? It appears to be more sound than that building…
926

Many of the homes photographed (so cleanly cropped, and during the day, btw) have been abandoned for decades. City should invest instead into its greatest and future saving resource, The Great Lakes. Comes a time when living walking distance to a fresh water source is the most expensive piece of property on the planet.
Phyrkrakr

Quick note: Program only available to employees of the Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Hospital, or Wayne State University.

Here’s the link to the actual program guidelines: http://livemidtown.org/information/guidelines

So, unless you’re already living near Detroit AND already working in the area, forget about it. They’re not going to buy you a house just for moving across country.
Anonymous

Interesting link, half the comments blame “liberals” for the City’s decline, rather than trade policies that discourage local manufacturing, or changing demographics, or any number of other problems every city faced in the 60s and 70s that some just did not recover from.

It seems like a good deal until you realize that you have to put 100k in to the places just to make them habitable, and that when you do you have a house on a block with no other houses on it- not exactly a real neighborhood scene. The only way that those houses can be saved is through programs like these, but they should also pitch in the money to stabilize them or there is no point.
JIMWICh

I call dibs on the cool three-story castle one!

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4d5aff3049e2ae0245010000-900-/image.jpg
Anonymous

i guess you may bring your beetle?

.~.
Anonymous

They’ve got to be kidding. Most of those houses are tear-downs; not salvageable (spoken from the perspective of a person who is halfway through a ‘studs-out’ renovation of a 1935 farmhouse). There’s a handful that *might* be saved, but likely at a greater cost than 100k. Nothing shows the interiors though, which if I had to hazard a guess, are even more of a gutted shell than their savaged exteriors reveal. Anything that can be sold gets torn out, anything remaining gets ruined. The husks without roofs are pointless to even contemplate. Might make a few thousand bucks off the used brick, if you tore them down carefully and shipped it off to states less affected by the Great Repression.

Doesn’t the City of Detroit have something that the purchaser of a residential property has only x-amount of time to bring it up to city codes/regulations? Thought I remembered seeing something about this a couple years ago, in conjunction with people thinking about picking up super-cheap homes there. I wish I knew the answer for Detroit; I really do. Beautiful state, Michigan.
Anonymous

Yea, paying people to live in your homes. That’ll attract a good crowd …
LogrusZed

Does the city provide me with the firepower I would need to protect my meager possessions?

On the serious tip: If you could get a collective of people to get homes in the same neighborhood, people who are not depending on working for others like artists or makers you might could pull something off.
Anonymous

I wonder how the art scene is in Detroit. Cheap, big houses could be wonderful for artists.
g0d5m15t4k3

If I had a job that allowed me to work from home I would be ON this. I have a photographer friend who is going to do this. Just set up base camp there. Its nice being between Chicago and the east coast.
Anonymous

Why doesn’t Detroit just advertise outside of the country and bring in a bunch of immigrants who would love the space, buildings, and security of living in a place like Detroit?

Want to see Detroit become vibrant and livable again? Bring in 100k young 1st or 2nd generation slum-dwellers from South America. Boom. Instant growth, instant economy, instant community.

except for some reason in the US IMMERGANTS IS BADD!

weirdness.
Anonymous

It would be easier to declare amnesty on the illegal immigrants and tell them ‘you can stay… in Detroit’, and then they could rebuild the city somehow.
Rayonic

Can we just agree that it was a combination of corruption and bad policies that drove most of the people/business out of Detroit? Some could be categorized as socialist, sure, and some were racist and some were just plain stupid.

I’ve agreed with Mayor Bing’s housing decisions so far (cutting off empty neighborhoods, etc.), though I’m curious about the state of everything else. I hear schools are still terrible, for example.
pauldavis

this one:

http://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-houses-detroit-2011-2#-45

seems to be pushing the boundaries just a little bit.
theawesomerobot

This is kind of backwards – you need business to move to Detroit first before you can expect people to make the leap.
nutsackylacky

Having grown up in both Chicago and a small mill town in North Carolina, I’ve been a witness to the migration of labor from the union-friendly north to a right-to-work state. There was no shortage of smug, anti-union sentiment among the southerners I worked with in the 80′s. They were almost celebratory in their zeal to work for less, knowing a hard lesson was being learned by those “liberal,” unionized yankees.

But then a funny thing happened. The mill owners found an even cheaper place to operate: Mexico!! One by one companies closed up shop and hit the road. Because there was never any pressure for them to make meaningful contributions to the community beyond the “gift” of low-wage employment, there was nothing left but giant, empty facilities in their wake. To be sure, some jobs remained, but a sudden (it really was) influx of Mexican immigrants drove wages so low that those jobs became ones that “Americans aren’t willing to do.” And sure as shit, the same group of union-bashers rushed to blame the Mexicans, so pathological were/are they in defense of their corporate masters. Lesson NOT learned.

You can read about one of my hometowns in Forbes, as it was celebrated as one of America’s “fastest dying towns” in 2008:
http://bit.ly/ghevyB
AGC

Detroit, New Orleans, Buffalo … how many other cities have been lost?

Factories have to be rebuilt once every 30 years to stay competitive. They need to be built bigger with more efficient equipment. Because the United States is a country greatly divided other locations managed to get the business from previously well-to-do cities. There is too much government in the USA, not because it has a large beauracracy, but because there are too many competing governments/juristictions. Some central planning would do you a world of good.
Exo

The rustbelt cities are in for a very long, ugly, painful contraction. Most of these places have nothing to offer large populations anymore. They were established when transportation was young, and unreliable. They have died at the hand of globalism, and are very unlikely places for future growth. Sure they have great ports and other industrial infrastructure, but America doesn’t manufacture anymore. Until we start doing that again, they will increasingly become ghost towns. Americans will gravitate towards the East and West coasts, and (water permiting) the Southwest.

It’ll be pretty interesting to see what these cities can do with smaller populations, and huge infrastructures. What do you do with 30 skyscrapers that no one is in? An 8 lane highway with 4 lane traffic? What about 50 years from now? I hope that there is a longterm solution to this besides dereliction.
- peterbruells
  
  You build back.
  
  What you describe is exactly what many East German regions are facing right now, though on a smaller scaler. The young people all go the the West or the bigger East German cities, leaving some regions to die off.
awjtawjt

I’ll take them all and combine them into 1 super run-down-castle… in another town. Anywhere but day-twa, no effin way I’d live there.
Anonymous

These are two separate programs, and the incentives are not limited to buyers of “abandoned” homes. The photographs of abandoned homes by Kevin Bauman don’t necessarily depict homes eligible for these programs. The program for police officers offers incentives on foreclosed homes the Detroit Land Bank Authority has obtained with Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds.

http://detroitlandbank.org/pro14/fact.pdf

The second program described as being for “college grads” is actually limited to employees of Wayne State University, Detroit Medical Center, and Henry Ford Health System. There are many types of eligible properties inside that program’s boundaries in Midtown Detroit.

http://livemidtown.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/1101011_LIVE_Midtown_Guideline_FINAL4.pdf
monstrinho_do_biscoito

what they need is a big metal statue of RoboCop