Property Listing Extremes (San Francisco - Detroit)

16 De Long Street, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA 94112

Below: Comment: Not the cheapest Detroit listing by far ... but livable.

17624 Saint Louis St, Detroit, MI 48212

Detroit's Blight

Blight Cleanup Will Cost a Bankrupt Detroit $850 Million, Study Finds
Excerpt:

Saying that Detroit needed to rid itself of its vast collection of dilapidated houses, junk-filled lots and empty shops, a task force examining the city’s blight said Tuesday that the price tag for the cleanup would be at least $850 million, including the likely demolition of 40,000 buildings scattered around the city.  ...

... The report — perhaps the most elaborate and detailed survey of decay conducted in any large city — found that 84,641 parcels among the city’s more than 377,000 properties are plagued by blight. Of those, some 40,000 buildings or parts of buildings should be torn down, according to the study. “Detroit needs to act aggressively to eradicate the blight in as fast a time as possible,” the report concluded. “Other cities contending with high levels of blight have never addressed more than 7,000 structures a year. At that pace, it would take Detroit more than 11 years to address” its disintegrating buildings and rubble-strewn lots. The report added that “because blight creates more blight,” the city’s deterioration would continue “without swift remedies.” It called for eliminating blight in Detroit within five years.

Comment: Link to report. Opinion: Among other things ... years of Democratic Party leadership

Detroit - Decades of Inept (Democratic Mayors) Leadership

Comment: Full coverage on Detroit's bankruptcy from the Detroit Free Press. List of Mayors

Judge rules Detroit eligible for historic Chapter 9 bankruptcy, says pensions can be cut
How Detroit went broke
Detroit's bankruptcy will be painful in destitute, desperate city
Editorial: Bankruptcy eligibility ruling a victory for Detroiters

Comment: Debt will ruin a home, a church, a city, a state, a country!

Coleman Young's vision for Detroit .... and why we shouldn't pay for his fiasco

How Coleman Young Ruined Detroit

Excerpt:

Young [WIKI Coleman Young] was far left, a fellow traveler of the CPUSA through membership in affiliated organizations and was deeply involved with the UAW. He was Mayor of Detroit for 20 years, from 1974 to 1994. I believe he made a cynical decision to make Detroit a majority black city, largely for his own political benefit. Whites had left the city in large numbers following the riots in ’67, but Young, I believe, was happy to see them go and subtly let them know they weren’t really wanted there anymore. The higher the black to white ratio in the city, the tighter was his grip on power.

In his years in power there were two techniques he used to cement his power and influence. One was to pack the city payroll with supporters, a tried and true tactic of municipal governments everywhere. However, his deep ties to the union movement opened the door for a huge amount of influence in compensation negotiations resulting in the high wages and generous benefits, including pensions, which are plaguing the city now....
The second technique he used was to keep race relations at a boil. When I moved here in 1978 the Detroit metro area was almost unbelievably segregated. Most suburbs, with a few notable exceptions, had only tiny black populations. Almost all the blacks in the metro area lived in the city and almost all the whites in the suburbs. My first drive up Jefferson Ave from the center of the city into the Grosse Pointes was eye opening. Within 3-4 blocks it changed from a filthy street with abandoned buildings and rundown store fronts covered with graffiti and protective steel gratings to a tree lined avenue with large well maintained homes with immaculate landscaping. There was a virtual Maginot line at the border of Detroit..

Young was a master of exploiting this divide and creating friction with the “suburbs” (dogwhistle for “whites”) and regularly used this to foster a “them (white) vs us (black)” mentality in his voter base. He was always the guy standing up to “the suburbs” and they loved him for it. He was mayor for life. Sadly, this technique was extremely effective, to the point where it not only worked on blacks in Detroit, it also worked on the whites in the suburbs. To this day, almost twenty years after Young left office, the animosity is such that any cooperative endeavors between Detroit and its surrounding communities are always fraught with a significant dose of racial politics. Blacks always think that whites want to take over and whites don’t see any benefit in doing anything that helps the city.

While the racial segregation of the Detroit metro area has eased over the years, this has actually worked to the detriment of the city. Over the past several decades crime has gone up and services have declined, making the city a much less desirable place to live, as population figures confirm. The vast majority of that population loss, I believe, has been the black middle classes who left the city for the suburbs. It is perfectly understandable that they want to move their families to where the streets are safer and services are better, most notably the school districts. The result is that the city is now largely populated by an underclass that is very poorly educated and pretty much only capable of working at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Functional illiteracy has been estimated at nearly 50% and over a third of the population is on welfare. It is a tragedy and it will be a primary factor in keeping the city from any meaningful rebound, at least in the next couple of decades. The human capital is just not there to rebuild an economic infrastructure capable of lifting the city out of its financial difficulties. (Digression: if current lawsuits filed by pensioners to protect their interests are successful a huge proportion of meager city operating finances will be untouchable and other city services will suffer enormously in the future, digging an even deeper hole for the city.)

Dems Favor Federal Bailout of Detroit, But Majority of Public Opposed

A new national poll from Quinnipiac University shows that a majority Democrats believe the federal government should bail out Detroit, but an even larger majority of Americans oppose such a move. Fifty-one percent of Democrats support Washington providing federal assistance to Detroit, which last month became the largest American city ever to seek bankruptcy protection. Not surprisingly, there is a strong partisan divide on the question of a federal bailout for the Motor City. Seventy-three percent of Republicans oppose a bailout, while only 18 percent support the idea. Independents are nearly of the same mind as Republicans on the issue: 68 percent oppose federal assistance for Detroit and 28 percent support it.

Comment: Detroit should stand as a monument to Democratic "leadership" .... so all can see the folly

Deadbeat City

Saving Detroit From Itself - A federal bailout would only reinforce the city's corrupt political culture.
Excerpt:

Detroit's decline really began with the middle-class migration to the suburbs in the 1950s, which accelerated after the 1967 race riot and election of labor organizer Coleman Young as mayor in 1973. During his 20-year reign, Mr. Coleman ignored crime, inflamed racial tensions and built a patronage machine.

Local politicians bought union support with generous labor agreements. Pensions were sweetened retroactively. In good investment years, retirement funds issued bonus checks. Until two years ago public-safety officers didn't have to pay a penny to their pensions and could retire at 55 with roughly 85% of their salary, a 2.25% annual cost-of-living increase and nearly free health benefits.

.... Misrule has resulted in the nation's highest violent crime rate, worst schools, blight and corruption. A former mayor, city treasurer and several pension-fund trustees were recently indicted for corruption.

..... Unions say it's not fair for the city to break promises to workers, though it long ago abrogated its social contract with local taxpayers to protect their safety and provide basic public services. What would really be unfair is to make taxpayers in cities like San Jose, California, and Providence, Rhode Island, which have scaled back current worker pensions to avert bankruptcy, pay for Detroit's recklessness. As history shows, sending more cash to Detroit won't fix its breakdown in self-government. Another bailout would merely support its toxic political culture of neglect and corruption.

Comment: Should not receive a federal bailout! As an aside ... the old Sim City simulation on saving Detroit was un-winnable (at least by me!).

Solutions: 

• Tear down blight (with delay)
• Sell the art collection. It's symbolic! Sell the Howdy Doody and one of the first Mustangs
• What not destined to be permanently undeveloped, have an Oklahoma-style land run. Lots are free if one builds on and lives in for 10 years.
• Create tax-free manufacturing zones (20 year)
• But no federal bailout!

Detroit: An harbinger for the nation

Obama's America Will Become Detroit
Excerpt:

What happened to Detroit? It is achieving socialism in one city.

Traditional two-parent families and the productive taxpaying citizens they produce have fled. In 1950, according the U.S. Census Bureau, Detroit had 1,849,568 people and was the fifth-largest city in the nation. By 2000, its population had dropped to 951,270; by 2010, to 713,777; and by 2011, to 706,585.

What has happened to the people who remain? The Census Bureau estimates there are 563,055 people age 16 or older in the city who could potentially work and be part of the labor force. But only 54.3 percent of these — or 305,479 individuals — actually do participate in the labor force, meaning they either have a job or are looking for one. Another 257,576 of Detroit residents age 16 or older — 45.7 percent of that demographic — do not participate in the labor force. They do not have a job, and they are not looking for one.

In fact, these 257,576 people in Detroit who do not have a job and are not looking for one outnumber the 224,846 residents who do have jobs. But of the 224,846 residents who do have jobs, 34,500 — or 15.3 percent — have jobs with the government. Thus, this city that boasted 1,849,568 residents in 1950 has only 190,346 private-sector workers today.

There are 264,209 households in Detroit, and 91,204 of them — or 34.5 percent — get food stamps.

Very few of the people who are staying out of the labor force in Detroit are staying out because they are stay-at-home moms with working husbands. Of the 264,209 households in Detroit, only 24,275 — or 9.2 percent — are married couple families with children under 18. Another 78,438 households — or 29.7 percent of the total — are "families" headed by women with no husband present. Of these, 43,742 have children under 18.

There were 12,103 babies born in Detroit in the 12 months prior to the Census Bureau survey, and 9,124 of them — or 75.4 percent — were born to unmarried women.

Of the 363,281 housing units in Detroit, 99,072 are vacant. Indeed, vacant houses have become a powerful visual symbol of what advancing socialism has done to the city. Traditional family life is nearing extinction in this once vibrant corner of America.

Obama said in Michigan that if the federal government does not take more money away from people who have earned it, the public schools may not be able to buy school books. But the Department of Education says that in the Detroit public schools — which have books — only 7 percent of the eight graders are grade-level proficient in reading and only 4 percent are grade-level proficient in math.

School books are not lacking here. Self-reliance, the spirit of individualism, and the Judeo-Christian values that support marriage and family are. They have been driven out by a government that wants the people to depend on it rather than on themselves, their families and their faith.

Comment: Detroit: Once a great city! US .... once a great nation!

Detroit: "lowest population level since the 1910 census"

Detroit's Population Crashes

Excerpt:

The flight of middle-class African-Americans to the suburbs fueled an exodus that cut Detroit's population 25% in the past decade to 713,777, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. That's the city's lowest population level since the 1910 census, when automobile mass production was making Detroit Detroit.

The decline, the fastest in city history, shocked local officials, who had expected a number closer to 800,000. Mayor Dave Bing said the city would seek a recount.

"If we could go out and identify another 40,000 people that were missed, and it brings us over the threshold of 750,000, that would make a difference from what we can get from the federal and state government," Mr. Bing said at a news conference Tuesday.

In all, the city lost more than 237,000 residents, including 185,000 blacks and about 41,000 whites. The Hispanic population ticked up by 1,500. Meanwhile, the black population in neighboring Macomb County more than tripled to 72,723, constituting 8.6% of the county's population in 2010, compared with 2.7% a decade earlier. Oakland County's African-American population rose 36% to 164,078.

Comment: Bad government has a lot to do with this exodus. Image source: 1914 Ford Model T Touring Car original vintage advertisement

"Right sizing" Detroit - 1860 Balmoral Drive

Detroit Shrinks Itself, Historic Homes and All

Excerpt:

In leveling 1860 Balmoral Drive, the boyhood home of one-time presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Detroit is losing a small piece of its history. But the project is part of a demolition effort that is just now gaining momentum and could help define the city's future.

Detroit is finally chipping away at a glut of abandoned homes that has been piling up for decades, and intends to take advantage of warm weather and new federal funding to demolish some 3,000 buildings by the end of September.

Mayor Dave Bing has pledged to knock down 10,000 structures in his first term as part of a nascent plan to "right-size" Detroit, or reconfigure the city to reflect its shrinking population.

When it's all over, said Karla Henderson, director of the Detroit Building Department, "There's going to be a lot of empty space."

Mr. Bing hasn't yet fully articulated his ultimate vision for what comes after demolition, but he has said entire areas will have to be rebuilt from the ground up. For now, his plan calls for the tracts to be converted to other uses, such as parks or farms.

Even when the demolitions are complete, Detroit will still have a huge problem on its hands. The city has roughly 90,000 abandoned or vacant homes and residential lots, according to Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit that tracks demographic data for the city.

Google street view: Click

Shrinking Detroit

Detroit Mayor Bing emphasizes need to shrink city

Excerpts:

Bing's staff is using its own data and a survey released last weekend by Data Driven Detroit. The block-by-block study of the 139 square-mile city showed that roughly one in three parcels are vacant lots or abandoned homes.

...

Detroit's population has shrunk to roughly 900,000 from 1.85 million in 1950.

John Mogk, a Wayne State law school professor, said Bing's on the right track but will face four major challenges: political support; money; creating a bureaucracy to administer the project and legal challenges.

Among the court challenges he sees ahead include the legality of cutting off city services to particular neighborhoods and using eminent domain to relocate residents

Comment: Once a great city! Poor government and crime killed it! Detroit has 2600 homes for sale from 0 to 30K. Check 'em out here

Three auto industry commentaries worth reading

Obama's flawed auto logic

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama insists he doesn't want to run the domestic auto industry -- and we should all be thankful for that.

But his actions speak differently -- and we should all be worried.

"... I rejected the original restructuring plan" that Chrysler LLC submitted for government loans, he said April 30 in announcing his decision to force Chrysler into bankruptcy. "... And the standard I set was high -- I challenged them to design a plan ..."

That's a lot of self promotion and involvement from a guy who doesn't want to control the companies.

...

The president found a scapegoat in the hedge funds that balked at the government's "offer" to take pennies on the dollar for their secured investment

"... It was unacceptable to let a small group of speculators endanger Chrysler's future by refusing to sacrifice like everyone else," he said.

Pardon me while I puke.

Chrysler's secured lenders held about $6.9 billion in debt and a couple didn't want to take significantly less than what they were owed. The lenders that opposed hold less than 10 percent of that debt.

You mean to tell me that the president, who has authorized more than $19 billion in cash to the auto companies, with much of it likely never to be repaid, was willing to force Chrysler into bankruptcy over less than a billion bucks?

When you're doling out dump trucks full of cash, another Ram pickup full doesn't break the government's back.

The Truth About Cars and Trucks

Excerpt:

The two parties that turned the Big Three into a perennially limping freak of unwritten industrial policy now will take formal ownership of their handiwork. The United Auto Workers (UAW) would own 39% of GM. The federal government would own 50%. The creditors will be shafted with just 10%. (In the Chrysler plan being discussed, labor would own 55%, making it effectively a subsidiary of the UAW.)

The day after any such settlement is finalized, the clock will start ticking down to the next collective-bargaining session between a monopoly UAW and what remains of the Big Three -- though now the UAW would be sitting on both sides of the table.

Nearly 25 years ago, a Los Angeles Times reporter innocently and accurately invoked the "M" word in describing the domestic auto sector, noting that the arrival of Japanese auto plants was "threatening the UAW's traditional monopoly on labor in the domestic auto industry."

The erosion of the Big Three's market share since then has really been the erosion of the market for monopoly labor-produced cars. The UAW standard tactic, "pattern bargaining," which it pursues without embarrassment, would have gotten Bill Gates thrown in jail under the antitrust laws.

When the L.A. Times wrote, the labor cost differential versus a Japanese plant was about $2,000 per car. Twenty years later, the cost difference was about $2,000 per car. Today's lament is, "The bankers have benefited from a bailout, so why shouldn't auto workers?" But they have, they have -- for decades. For the business model described above could not possibly have survived otherwise.

Return of Le Car

Excerpt:

t's no exaggeration to say the rest of the story is told in Chrysler's bankruptcy filing. In search of a partner to underwrite development of fuel-sipping hybrids and electric cars that would be almost certain to lose money in the U.S. marketplace, Chrysler's Tom LaSorda spent two years seeking alliances with Nissan, GM, Volkswagen, Tata, Magna, GAZ, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Beijing Auto and others -- efforts that were "uniformly without success." Fiat, he said in an affidavit, was "Chrysler's last best hope."

Not since Renault teamed up with AMC to bring you Le Car has an odder pairing been seen -- or a less promising one.

Credulous media accounts insist the only challenge now is whether Chrysler can hang on for two years until Fiat begins churning out U.S. versions of its popular European models in U.S. factories. Goodness.

Unless gasoline prices go to $5 a gallon, Mr. Marchionne certainly is not so foolish to believe making and selling teensy eurocars in the U.S. is anybody's route to salvation.

Even in Europe, he has noted, a move to bigger, more powerful cars is underway. Motorists are getting fatter and older -- and unwilling to contort themselves to get in and out of a car.

He also understands that trying to beat Toyota at its own game is a nonstarter. Toyota sets a standard of quality and technology that all must meet -- that's the price of admission. But "what we have that Toyota does not have -- and I say this with all modesty -- is the great historical heritage of the brands."

Comment: Imagine an auto industry owned half by the UAW and half by the government. And the Dems and Labor collude! UAW feeds the Dems .... the Dems feed the UAW. I won't buy those cars!

Handout Nation (now it's Detroit)

City Council: Detroit needs $10-billion bailout

Excerpt:

The Detroit City Council passed a resolution today calling for a $10-billion bailout for the city of Detroit.

Council President Pro Tem JoAnn Watson sponsored the resolution to use the money for public service employment, to fund mass transit plans and to place a moratorium on home foreclosures for two years.

The resolution specifically requests the council meet with Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr., Gov. Jennifer Granholm, the state’s congressional delegation, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and officials from President George W. Bush’s office and President-Elect Barack Obama’s transition team.

Comment: Everyone seems to have their hand out!

Detroit: Kwame M. Kilpatrick - time to GO!

Michigan Governor to Hold Proceedings That Could Lead to Detroit Mayor’s Ouster

Excerpt:

In a blow to Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick’s tenuous grip on his job here, Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan said Tuesday that she would hold proceedings next week that could result in Mr. Kilpatrick’s removal.

The mayor, who stands accused of 10 felony counts in two separate criminal cases, will have to defend himself before Ms. Granholm, who under state law is authorized to convene the proceedings.

The Detroit City Council, which has no authority to remove Mr. Kilpatrick from office, had asked Ms. Granholm to take up the matter after having urged the mayor to resign.

Comment: You can't begin to fix Detroit until this crook goes!

Detroit foreclosure meltdown

Foreclosure fallout: Houses go for a $1

Excerpt:

The home, at 8111 Traverse Street, a few blocks from Detroit City Airport, was the nicest house on the block when it sold for $65,000 in November 2006, said neighbor Carl Upshaw. But the home was foreclosed last summer, and it wasn't long until "the vultures closed in," Upshaw said. "The siding was the first to go. Then they took the fence. Then they broke in and took everything else."

The company hired to manage the home and sell it, the Bearing Group, boarded up the home only to find the boards stolen and used to board up another abandoned home nearby.

Scrappers tore out the copper plumbing, the furnace and the light fixtures, taking everything of value, including the kitchen sink.

"It about doesn't make sense to put the family out," Upshaw said. "Once people are gone, you're gonna lose the house in this neighborhood."

Tuesday, the home was wide open. Doors leading into the kitchen and the basement were missing, and the front windows had been smashed. Weeds grew chest-high, and charred remains marked a spot where the garage recently burned.

Put on the market in January for $1,100, the house had no lookers other than the squatters who sometimes stayed there at night. Facing $4,000 in back taxes and a large unpaid water bill, the bank that owned the property lowered the price to $1.
$1 sale to cost bank $10,000

While it's not unusual for $1 to be exchanged when property is transferred for legal reasons, listing a home in the Multiple Listing Service for $1 was surprising and unsettling to Kent Colpaert, the listing real estate agent for the property.

"I've never seen a home listed for $1," Colpaert said.

"But it's been hit hard: It's just a shell."

On Tuesday, Realtor.com listed one other single-family home, one duplex and one empty lot at $1 in Detroit.

Dollar property sales are the financial hangover from the foreclosure crisis, said Anthony Viola of Realty Corp. of America in Cleveland.

Comment: Find other deals here: www.realtor.com. I found others for $ 1. Many others for under $ 1000.