Detroit real estate: A bargain home or a money pit?
Detroit’s four-figure home prices are unusual, but investors around the country think foreclosed houses are too cheap to pass up. How to tell a great deal from a money pit.
For a foreclosure, the house at 15461 Kentfield St. in Detroit needed surprisingly little work. The new owner, an investor from the Chicago area named Kevin Holmes, slapped on a coat of paint, pulled up the dirty carpets, and replaced the stolen water heater. The car stashed out back, he learned soon enough, belonged to a neighbor, not a thief using the three-bedroom as a makeshift chop shop.
The simple brick home really wouldn’t look out of place in any middle-income Midwestern neighborhood. But in distressed Detroit, the Kentfield house sold for less than half the sticker price on a new Chevy coupe: $6,900.