Low property values, high renovation costs create a cycle of closed doors for small-scale rehabbers living in Detroit
A little more than 25% of housing units in Detroit are vacant—a staggering 92,000 units. For longtime Detroiters bearing witness to this in real time, a number of this magnitude carries complex weight.Few would blame residents for feeling compounded emotions after years of population decline, overtaxation, and foreclosure followed by land bank auctions, property speculation and more than 19,000 residential demolitions. Nevertheless, residents have not succumbed to the overwhelm. Instead they have never stopped trying to acquire and rehabilitate homes and small-scale commercial properties in neighborhoods throughout the city.It’s a fraught with challenges. The reality is that the…Continue Reading