Detroit and the Myth of the $100 House
16. Sep, 2009 
15 Comments 
Stony Creek Sunset, originally uploaded by NnYSeb
America’s Rust Belt is a swath of cities and towns that boomed during the Industrial Era and now lie—well, rusting—as empty remainders of glory days past.
Chief among these is Detroit, Motor City. The longtime center of American automotive manufacturing was gutted when the Big Three car companies simultaneously failed.
Detroit, already plagued by corruption and crime, saw its unemployment rate skyrocket in 2009.
What’s left behind when an economy collapses? Cheap real estate, that’s what.
Graphic courtesy of Mark J. Perry
I’d read a New York Times article about some forward-thinking artist-types who bought a house in Detroit for $1,900. $1,900! Some of us (and lots of New Yorkers) pay that much in rent every month!
In fact, the article went on, soon a nearby house went on the market for $100. The artist types notified their buddies, who moved in post haste.
I was intrigued. Really? A $100 house? Even if it was a real fixer-upper, even if you really were better off tearing it down than living in it, that’d still be a hell of a deal. Why, out in New Mexico, where you can still buy unincorporated land with no water or roads, you’d pay at least $1,000 for a house-sized plot of dust. So how can you buy an actual home for $100? That’s literally cheaper than dirt.
find this and other houses under $1,000 at realtor.com
The possibilities of this were fascinating. I had visions of hipsters from coast to coast converging in Detroit, building a new city on rock&roll. I pictured young artists owning homes, fixing up neighborhoods. I saw community gardens, art parks, a grassroots transformation of a city. We could take that oil-stained soil and those rusted factories, and create something new and beautiful. With houses going for $100, I thought, what would you have to lose by moving to Detroit?
And so Quiet Earp and I did some research, and came up with a list of houses selling for under a grand. We had plenty to choose from: there were more cheap houses than we would have time to visit. We picked two neighborhoods to cruise, and dove in.
But once we entered Detroit, the truth hit fast: this is a modern American ghost town. The place is practically deserted. Its streets, built wide to accommodate heavy traffic, are mostly empty. Houses and businesses are boarded up, painted up, bombed out and falling down. Even in the center of the business district, there’s no traffic and hardly any people.
Don’t believe me? I videotaped it:
http://www.vimeo.com/6608344It got worse as we drove into residential areas, looking for those cheap houses. In fact, I’ve never felt so out of place in all my life. Even in Chicago’s South Side, where we counted five white people in an hour, I felt fine just driving around; not so in Detroit. Truthfully, it wasn’t about race: it was about being naive. It was about driving down streets where we truly did not belong and were not welcome.
Detroit is a ghost town, and it’s inhabited by ghosts: the only people left here are those who can’t or won’t leave. They live in deserted neighborhoods, in houses with collapsed front steps and missing windows. They sit on the porch and watch the cars go by, watch the deals go down, watch their neighborhoods crumble. And we, driving through slowly and reading house numbers in a late-model Honda, stuck out like a couple of thumbs.
So we sped up, and went straight to the houses. Sometimes we stopped to take a photo, but mostly we didn’t. Earp and I have each lived happily in the wilds of West Oakland, but the danger I felt in Detroit was like nothing I’d experienced before. I was actually afraid for my life.
Look closely: this is the same house pictured above. It’s selling for $500—but since it went on the market, it looks worse for wear.
The New York Times correspondent wrote that his friend Mitch’s $1,900 home “had already been stripped of its appliances and wiring… But for Mitch that only added to its appeal, because he now had the opportunity to renovate it with solar heating, solar electricity and low-cost, high-efficiency appliances.”
As for the $100 house? It “needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced.”
Well, I don’t know what part of Detroit these folks live in, but the $100 houses I saw looked more like this:
You see, abandoned houses in this town get set on fire. No exceptions. Wherever we went in those neighborhoods, one in four houses had been torched. On one corner, we saw a giant banner hung across a charred front porch. We didn’t slow down to take a photo, but I’ll paraphrase: DON’T BURN HOUSES DOWN! DETROIT POLICE ARE WATCHING YOU!
Except that they obviously aren’t. People who live in this part of town are on their own. And although I and many others would love to own even a fire-scarred, condemned building, the fact is that we wouldn’t last a week here. Buy a $100 house in Detroit, and you get a lifetime supply of sleepless nights: you’ll spend the next several years waiting for burglars and arsonists, murderers and crackheads to break in the windows.
It’s like the Wild West without the scenery, the gold, and the hope. It’s the Rust Belt.
What was this building even made of in the first place? How could it stand as long as it did?
Ultimately, I do believe that change will come to Detroit. There will be a green movement here; in fact it’s already being cultivated by forward-thinking groups and intrepid locals. One day, this place will be reborn.
But right now, the NYT’s story reeks of Shinola.
Truth is, any artist-type who moves into this part of Detroit is probably pretty handy with a pistol or a shotgun. Anyone who takes this plunge is risking their life every day, betting on a future that may take a long time to arrive.
Long story short: Yes, you can buy a house in Detroit for $100. And you will get what you pay for.
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Cheers to Toby Barlow, who inspired my trek to Detroit, and who believes in a happier, greener future. May your every dream come true, sir, and your book
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Great post. Thank you for this info. I need that
Please track down and watch a movie called “Detroit: A City to Yourself”, by Nicole MacDonald. It’s full of this imagery, and talks about the 1805 fire and rebuilding, and the post-industrial devastation that’s ravaged the city since.
Most poignantly, it talks about Hurricane Katrina, which focused attention on rebuilding another city with this level of devastation, and how without a single catastrophic event to blame for it, Detroit’s decay has gone unsympathetically ignored.
The movie wraps up by observing this, how abandoned buildings and spaces are being reclaimed by nature. About the pop fiction which explores the concept of a post-human world, and how it already exists now. And about how, if you’re a pheasant, that’s not such a bad thing.
HOWEVER…
There’s a lot more to Detroit than that. There are industrial spaces being turned into low-rent artist lofts and business incubators. (Look at the Russell Industrial Complex, for one example.) There are neighborhoods that refuse to cave. (west of Livernois around McNichols). There’s a whole bunch of nice stuff happening along the riverfront, from downtown up towards Stroh Place.
And there’s always Belle Isle. When friends come to Detroit, I take them there. It’s our in-the-river park, 982 acres of green space, with a zoo, a botanical garden and conservatory, rentable paddle boats, and tons of other neat stuff. Next time you’re in Detroit, please head over. Oh, and entry is free, so it’s available to anyone regardless of economic status. You’re liable to see families picnicking, bums gathering bottles and cans, geese foraging, and deer cautiously wandering the edge of the woods. Within a hundred yards of each other.
Some of that cheap real estate isn’t too horrible, either. There’s a whole street being taken over by artists, Farnsworth between Moran and McDougall. Some of the things they’ve done down there are amazing, and the community garden is a great bridge to the surrounding neighborhood. A few weeks ago, someone broke into their shed to steal their garden tools. Think about that for a moment, hoes and shovels don’t have enough pawn value to be worth carrying out. Whoever took that stuff is probably using it in their own garden.
Yes, Detroit’s got more than its share of bad spots, you’re right. I’ve lived in the metro area my whole life, and there are areas (I can’t call them neighborhoods) down there where I don’t feel safe in daytime, much less at night. But there are bright spots, and behind every one of them is a person, or a bunch of people, who refuse to give up.
Myself – Thanks for the comment and the great information. You are exactly the kind of person who gives me back the hope I lost on my way into town. Seems there’s a pretty solid group of Detroit residents who are truly committed to restoring the city, and that’s beautiful to see.
Love the fact that people are stealing garden implements (though it’s still sad that they need to).
I will absolutely watch A City To Yourself, thank you for the recommendation. And when I’m in the area again, I’ll go out to Belle Isle and think long&hard about the future of American cities–as I’m sure you do occasionally too.
Well, growing up not far from Detroit myself, I would point out a few things:
1. Driving a Honda in Detroit right now probably isn’t really going to get you welcomed with open arms. See, there’s a wee bit of loyalty to the Big 3 and driving a foreign car doesn’t really scream “solidarity” to those struggling to survive. Most of the funny looks you got were less about your color than about your ride. You think I’m kidding, but I couldn’t be more serious – that Honda is a visceral reminder for people of how the American consumer has left Detroit in the dust.
2. Detroit (proper) has been dying for a long time – before the 1968 riots, even. Its going to take some pioneering individuals to start creating those pockets of innovation, creativity, and vision. But its not going to happen with the investment of $100 into a single house. Someone will need to begin by creating an urban “oasis” that mitigates some of the fears that you had while driving through the city – where to buy groceries, a place where you can feel safe on your own front porch, the freedom to sleep soundly without worrying about your copper wiring.
3. For all that is wrong with Detroit – and that’s nearly everything – you’d be astonished by the pride that Detroiters have for their city. They lack the means to build her back to her former glory, but she won’t be abandoned. For all of those who are trapped there by their circumstances, there are just as many who insist that they wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Thank you for the opportunity to see post-BushCo era Detroit through the prism of your vision.
I’ve never been there, but ever since that mad, possessed American History Professor I had, I’ve been haunted by Detroit. No, even before that – The Dollmaker has often been called ‘America’s least pretentious masterpiece’. (Joyce Carol Oates in the NYTBR)
When folks like Gertie Nevels, and Levon Helm and John Hiatt and my favorite, John Henry, left the mountains to go wrestle with the Industrial leviathan in Detroit, they were in it to the death. Detroit won’t be the death of the courage of those early Detroit pioneers; it looks like Nature will prevail after all. Everybody wins.
I love what you are doing.
Is this the monument left behind for the world to witness, by Corporatism, Capitalism? Is this the greatness they built on earth? Is this the proof that all countries deserve democracy and its inevitable cancers, corporatism and capitalism? We die in war to bring this to other countries? This, American Glory? In a class-less society? This is the final phase, the crowning glory of America’s greatness? Does this show our system’s superiority over the commies in China? The old Soviet Guard? Europe’s follies? Have we really built a “Great Society” or is that all propaganda – Bull Shiite to hush free thought, eyes to the flag, while our pockets and resources were raided by shysters, spin-meisters, schmucks and banksters? Did we build sane, sustainable, survival shelter homes? Do we still have fertile backyard gardens, filled with the composting of the age? Can any of what we built be recovered, restored, renovated, into useful shelter? Did the tools of production really get sold, to the shareholders benefit, leaving the worker without means to defend himself? Have the great fortunes earned in trust as “American” for American investment here in America, really migrated to the Beijing, Shanghai, and Hang-Seng markets, converted to safer “Yuan” and invested in China’s wealth? Did this really happen to American patriots? Do you still love democracy, corporatism, capitalism and all it has done for you? Are you really “Free”? Is Conscription just around the corner, to serve Halliburton(Dubai) in attaining pipeline clearance through Afghanistan, to Turkmenistan and the oil field there? Are American lives well spent in thei “Middle East” endevor? Are we just mercenaries for big oil, not liberators spreading “Freedom”? Is this really just flag-waving propaganda? What, exactly did we win in Iraq? Cheaper Oil? I think not! Gratitude of a Free nation? I think not! Why has the “Rust Belt” come into being? What were we doing? Where did the great society for all, the one we were told we were building go? Japan? China? To the Uber-Rich? As we sink into our own ruins, the dark horse rides on America! The dark horse rides on! Sad.
Green movement? You gotta be kidding me! Earth to Jessica: Democrats caused this. They have the unmidas touch. Every decaying city in America has D’s firmly in control, and has forever.
When you said you were naive, you weren’t kidding.
Nope, I wasn’t kidding. Put it in writing, didn’t I?
Lumpy, I’m not a Democrat and I don’t much approve of the Democratic Party. Just so we’re clear on that. I don’t think you present a fully-informed argument on the causes of urban decay, but I don’t disagree with you.
I’m not particularly interested in whose fault this mess is; rather, I choose to focus on how we’re going to clean it up. That’s where the green movement comes in, and when I say “green” I’m talking plants not politics.
If you’ve got some fancy new technology at Boeing that can do more for people’s health and happiness (and for less cost) than a victory garden can do, please let me know.
Last I checked, greed, sloth, hubris and waste were all pretty universally human traits, and I see no halos around either Libertarians, Dems or even anarchically green-at-heart.
I agree – Democrats, like country music, have disappointed me too many times in the past for me to keep on listening. But here’s the thing – frogs are mutating due to the planet trying to kill itself. Salmon have forgot how to screw. Otters in post-Valdez Alaska are clawing their own petro-chemical-burned eyes out in pain.
The patient is earth, and it’s not getting better. You want to yell at which insurance company fucked up, or change a bedpan, so to speak? During times of crisis (which this is), the ones who will create positive change are those who accept the hand they are dealt and act. The ones who are educated and informed and attached to delegating moral judgements will be perfectly equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Just ask the Palestinians who left after the first war to cry over the past. Or ask my Paiute grandfather. *Or even Friend Salmon, who still haunts my dreams and tells me not to let us blow each other’s asses off the earth until we clean up the mess we have made.
*That was for Lumpy. Nobody gets laughed at alone in my presence.
“…when I say “green” I’m talking plants not politics.”
Wall-E.
There is now a house for $10 listed on realtor.com
You told me about this, but it has to be seen to be believed (not that I didn’t believe you!). The richest country in the world…?!
Don’t forget about the back taxes!
I find this topic fascinating. I was born in a suburb of Detroit and most of family still lives there. I will be going back to visit in June. I plan to take a (Daytime) tour of these decaying areas especially the old factories. I have the urban explorer fascination. However, the main reason I wanted to post was to say to “Lumpy”, “the democrats have the unmidas touch”, LMAO, that is classic. and I must agree with Lumpy. Freaking hillarious and so true. Thanks Lump-man. BTW, great blog and great info. Peace.