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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Detroit: If you have a credit card and a want to own an apartment building, it is the place to be. Just needs some elbow grease. There MUST BE opportunity at $5 USD per square foot -- but it is hard to visualize.

https://www.point2homes.com/US/Multi-Family-For-Sale/MI/Detr...

[I think you can talk this guy down to $10k].

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Sometimes one guy can rehab an entire neighborhood one house at a time. Opportunities are still there in Detroit and the risks are a lot smaller than ten years ago. You could even be a determined BMW mechanic who backed into a new career supported by his neighbors capital. An only in Detroit story:

https://www.freep.com/story/money/real-estate/2018/04/14/vir...

Saying it's the place to be seems a bit an overreach. That building, as an example, is in a neighborhood that is just block after block of wasteland, with derelict abandoned houses falling to disrepair, and the empty lots where they removed them before. This particular building likely has no furnace, pipes were probably removed, and almost certainly requires many tens of thousands in upgrades.

It seems like illusory opportunity. There are areas of Detroit where some of the grand old homes are being resurrected and there have been opportunities, but this isn't one of them.

No furnace is not a big deal by itself, but likely no windows, no wiring, no plumbing, no fixtures. What remains likely has mold, lead paint, and other hazards. It's at best a gut-to-the-frame-and-rebuild. If severely weather damaged it might even be a tear-down.

And then you're on the hook for taxes and liens, and who knows what other encumbrances there are.

Maybe if you really, really wanted that land for some reason.

The Google Street view [1] shows it needs at least new doors and windows. Maybe even a new outer wall on the second floor (or the very least the ivy removed before it does more damage).

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/XmmdxPm45Q32

If they’d throw in a working visa I’d be intrigued

Starting a construction / rehab company might work.

This is how you build "new cities" [1]; pair startups with working visas and tie it together with funding and resource commitments (cough cough PlanGrid et el) to bring dilapidated housing back into inventory. Inexpensive corporate housing with you bootstrapping the culture and the community core.

[1] https://cities.ycr.org/

If you could pull that off, sounds like an incredible program to me. I don't think anything could revitalize Detroit like large amounts of immigrants would.

And Detroit already has a large immigrant population, so it's not that much of a culture shock.

From Wikipedia looks like they are below the national average, but I'd posit that means the upside is that much larger.

My favorite example of this process is booming South Florida, where more than half of adults are foreign born. Houston is another great one, with 23% foreign born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Metro_Detroit#... > 5% of people within the city of Detroit are immigrants, making the percentage of immigrants in Detroit the lowest such percentage out of those of the 25 largest cities in the United States. The national average is about 13%

The city itself has a very low immigrant population, but as is listed in your source, surrounding suburbs have very large immigrant populations. For instance Hamtranck has 43% born out of the country.

If you have the capital you can basically just buy an EB-5 investor visa.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat...

All you need is to be a multimillionaire that wants to move to a nigh abandoned section of Detroit.

Actually Michigan's Governor proposed to then President Obama a special Detroit visa where immigrants with skills would get a green card in exchange for moving to Detroit for a minimum of five years. Sadly he never got an answer.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/detroit-save...

A 4,664 sqft house on .1 acres, and its across from an abandoned parking lot/store or gas station to boot.

Only in America!

If you want the lowdown on Detroit (and other regions of the country) check out https://makeloveland.com/ They focus on helping people keep their homes and away from the county auction.

There's a Detroit entrepreneur who is trying to put together a pool of investors to rehab Detroit rental properties. He details every step he's taking on his blog which unfortunately is down right now.

Here's the under 2 minute where he shows off the 5 unit apartment building he bought on Craigslist for $13K and yes there are other opportunities out there just like that one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bapcgs1v62Q&t=4s

I think initiatives like the guy this one is taking is incredible, and these types of initiatives are a necessary risk in piecing the city back together. However, there is so much external risk in throwing capital into projects like these. We need the federal government to be on board, we need the local gov to have their heads on straight and to be willing to fight for appropriate legislation that is going to be attractive enough to bring people to the city. So far, I think we haven't seen enough of either. My feelings are therefore mixed. I want to see these localities do well; a rising tide lifts all boats; but the people at the top have demonstrated an ineptitude in being able to create real incentives. You only really see it in the private sector with players like dan gilbert.

Guys like Dan Gilbert and Christopher Illitch can get tax incentives, smaller guys cannot. The little guys, even if they have a multi-year proven record of success often cannot even get the backing of banks.

In what looks like a terrible neighborhood, right across the street from a funeral home. I think gaining tenants will be a challenge.

Midwestern cities have large real estate taxes relative to younger parts of the country because there are so many legacy pension costs per worker. No free lunch.

"Elbow grease" isn't going to fix major structural or infrastructural issues. I'm sure you were being funny, but most of those structures are tear downs.

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