“Real Estate Hell’ In Detroit
The Chicago Tribune reports on a not-so-hot housing market. ” An early retiree from Ford, Tom Cavanaugh and his wife, Lynne, would like to move to New Mexico to be closer to family. However, since putting their home up for sale last May, they have cut the asking price twice–from $590,000 to $525,000–and have yet to receive an offer.”
“Cavanaugh is stuck in Detroit’s stalled housing market, where inventory is growing, foreclosures are up and buyers are few. ‘I am in real estate hell,’ said Cavanaugh, who divides his time between an apartment in Los Angeles and the Detroit suburb of Northville, where he and his wife built a four-bedroom home for $500,000 nine years ago.”
“The job loss threat is also playing havoc with other Midwest industrial markets. Michigan, Ohio and Indiana ranked 48, 49, and 50 out of all U.S. states and the District of Columbia in price appreciation for the year ended June 30, 2005, said housing consultant Tracy Cross. Only Texas saw lower appreciation.”
“Last September, ‘the market just died,’ said Mary McLeod in Livonia, 25 miles west of Detroit. ‘Very few things are selling. There are a lot of things on the market.’ Farther north, Dennis Wolf in downtown Birmingham, said the inventory of homes in his market area, which includes Oakland County–the most affluent in the state–is 50 percent higher than it was at this time in 2005.”
“In Detroit’s south suburbs, Bob Reume said a lot of homeowners are not even venturing to put homes on the market. They have heard what has happened to others who a year ago optimistically bought a house before selling the old one, said Reume, who has been selling homes for 47 years. ‘There are quite a few people who are paying for two houses,’ said Reume, who is seeing more foreclosures than before.”
“Inventories of existing homes for sale are growing even as the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments estimated there were 20 percent fewer new home permits in 2005 than in 2004. There is no evidence of the panic-selling that occurred in Texas in the late 1980s when oil prices plummeted and house prices fell by nearly half. ‘That came out of nowhere. They went from boom to bust,’ said Bob Walters. ‘Unfortunately for us, it’s a slow leak.’”
“‘The outlook is horrible,’ said Cavanaugh. ‘The only people looking are transferees,’ he said. Cavanaugh said one transferee told him, ‘There are more homes to look at than we even have time to see.’”
This is what a RE bust looks like:
‘ People ‘don’t know if they are going to have job. There is no confidence in the area.’
Ben, unfortunately that area will be depressed for a long time. I don’t see it getting better there any time soon with the thousands of layoffs from the Big Three, related automotive vendors trimming staff, and in general a retrenchment of manufacturing jobs migrating to lower-cost areas.
yes and no. you’ll end up with a market that has plentiful affordable housing, an educated/motivated workforce, plenty of infrastructure, dirt cheap lease space (or buildings that are priced per square foot what others are paying to lease on the coasts). that’s why companies migrated from the coasts in the early 90’s, they’ll do it again, especially in the backdrop of a recession, where they’ll have to cost costs to survive, not just compete. imho.
Sorry boulderbo…You have a paradigm change at work..What can be offshored will be…Its a miserable climate to live in unless you have a reason..(Good Job)..Unfortunatly I think they are in for some very diffivult times…
Yes, and the same can and will happen in SV, when outsourcing hits critical mass. In SV, we used to laugh at the downsizing/hollowing-out of the American auto industry, now it’s SV’s turn.
But that has already happened. My company is a prime example, all development, pilot line and IP is done in SV and the manufacturing and assembley is done offshore. It’s been the model for the last few years so I don’t see SV emptying out as much as I see smaller companies being formed with the outsouce model from the begining.
Yes, we built this great thing called the Internet, but very few in SV envisioned that it would lead to the mass exportation of their jobs to third-world countries.
“…$525,000–and have yet to receive an offer… Detroit suburb of Northville, where he and his wife built a four-bedroom home for $500,000 nine years ago.”
Where’s the story? This is Detroit. This is a custom built. -IF- they had taken a 30yr fixed with 20% down 9 years ago they might get offers for the existing balance.
I’d say time to drop the price way down if you really want out. You’ve been paying on it for 9 years. You should get out even or with a small loss. Where is it written that you MUST always make money when you sell, especially in a hellhole like Detroit.
Though I never understand what they are waiting for, I think many of them are still expecting a repeat of last Spring’s revival. They just saw the receding of the tsunami’s first wave and think the worst is over. Boy, they have no idea how strong the second wave usually is and will be.
OTOH, it shows early ship jumpers usually have enough time to minimize their losses, but the rest will sink with the Titanic.
Sounds like they overpayed to me. I think they are going to be stuck in detriot for a long time. Take a loss and move on or ride it out. Another awesome day is arizona!!!!!!!!
Paging OC! I was in college at the time and saw this firsthand. We saw streets lined with FSBO signs and every third lawn unmowed because the “owner” walked. Considering that most of the jobs created in OC the past 5 years have been directly tied in with the bubble, don’t be surprised if you see the same thing we saw 20 years ago.
The fact that so many of today’s buyers, “investors” etc. were in college or younger at that time explains a lot to me, not to mention the unending resentment and brickbats thrown at the boomer generation (of which I am on the border of). Trust me, plenty of boomers lost their asses in those days while the rest of you were in high school and college.
Yes, and it appears that too many of the Gen Xers (or whatever they hell we are called) failed to pay attention.
I think Mr Walters wasn’t in Texas in the 80’s. Lou, I was in college too; a RE major at UT Arlington when the whole thing started. It wasn’t quick, it was years in the making. That’s why I would prefer a sharp correction to a drawn out one. The ‘no confidence’ statement reminds me of the Texas economy at the time.
I have been thinking back on the pre-bust times. If you’ll remember, there was some jealousy about the oil-folks wealth, and to be sure some were wishing for the chip to be knocked off their shoulder. But as the years played out, I doubt many Texans even remembered those feelings as we all were trying to make our lives work in the shambles of the business climate. Something a friend pointed out; At least those Texans had oil. Many of these bubble areas today don’t have an underlying asset like that.
Ben do you remember the Superconducting Supercollider debacle?
I bought some beautiful wooded building lots in Cedar Hill, TX in 1997 after they were abandoned by developers. Paid average of $10k apiece for them. In the past few years, I have been offered anywhere from 5-8x that to sell them to builders but they are donated to conservation groups. That area is prime endangered bird habitat. Too bad for “progress,” - the owner is a tree hugger who hates ugly tract houses, the people who build them and the people who live in them.
Yes, I remember the SSC project. It was largely a pork-barrel project some politicians roped in. It was supposed to be the big savior for the broken Texas economy. That was a lot of wasted money. I also remember the phony ‘bullet train’ idea. And the wireless ‘revolution’, when we built all those cell towers that sit like corn stalks now.
BTW, I lived in Cedar Hill for a few years during that time. Really beautiful area. The house I rented down there was offered to me in 2001 for 105K. I see it now valued on Zillow at 145K. I’ve walked away from a whole lot of gimmes, it seems.
I remember reading about the resentment. Particularly up in the northeast, where people were getting creamed by high heating oil costs. The oil companies and refineries are here so we got the blame.
I think the collapse was much faster in Houston, or maybe my memory is wacked. I seem to recall driving back from college every ferw weeks or so from Nacogdoches, and suddenly one weekend I noticed all the signs. I mean they were EVERYWHERE.
Our family had problems too but they held on. The parents still live there, which has turned out to be a very nice neighborhood (Lakewood Forest). But the amazing thing is they paid around $95,000 for the house in 1980 and as of the last appraisal it is valued at around $150,000. This is not a crappy house in a lousy part of town. This is a nice 4-bedroom house near the HP campus and very close to Champions. I just ran the numbers on a mortgage calculator - If the parents had put the money they paid for the mortgage into a lousy CD they would have had $378,964 sitting in the bank. Yikes! Doesn’t look like real estate is always a great investment!
A story I remember quite vividly concerned a gentleman by the name of Danny Faulkner. Danny, by all accounts was functionally illiterate, but that didn’t slow him down. Together with his buddies in the S&L industry, the mayor of Garland, Texas and a number of others, he was able to amass a huge amount of wealth by flipping condos and property off of Interstate 30 using fraudulent appraisals. One of the funnier stories is when his daughter got married. They had the ceremony at Park Cities Baptist Church - a monsterously huge church on Northwest Highway. The newspaper’s account of the reception included a blurb about one of the cakes being in the shape of his Lear jet. All of the guests were ferried around in antique Rolls Royce limos. Eventually, he was tried, convicted and sent to prison for his deeds. He didn’t fly under the radar very well with his ostentashous lifestyle.
He got out of prison early because he was diagnosed with terminal cancer - and, I believe he is still alive today - a number of years later. So much for doctors.
No need to add the “real estate” qualifier in this case.
Luckily there is no bubble in the Midwest, just on the coasts
Kind of hard to have a bubble when the price does not go up…
unless housing prices should have fallen to reflect falling incomes and a deteriorating economy…
Anyone who wants to know the future of Detroit look to upstate NY. I did a search for 1800sf, 3br, 2ba less than $50k! and got 24 hits http://tinyurl.com/oss2e or 1/10th their asking. So I changed my parameters to $450-$550k, 1/2 acre plus, 4br, 3ba and 3000+ sf. 11 hits http://tinyurl.com/o54o7
The home in the article: http://tinyurl.com/ozr2p
It’s hardly a gem. Geezuz, that’s ugly.
I can’t believe you can get a home for 20k??? Granted, they aren’t palaces but still. Is Rochester in the economic doldrums?
Detroit and Rochester both look really cold. I don’t think I could wear my flip-flops there year-round
Good luck selling that @ 525K.
$395K is tops for this house is Detroit - best of luck!
And, when they do sell it for that amount it will set the new LOWER bar for that neighborhood…No buyer will pay and no lender will loan for a house above this new ceiling..Thats when the forclosures start and it just gets worse…
I’m still in shock that you can actually buy a house in Rochester (or Buffalo, etc) for like 20K. I’m sure they’re not in the best shape, but it’s gotta be better than this gem.
I have a friend who bought a house in Rochester in ‘94 for 79K and 11 years later it appraised for 79K…..the world is flat.
Wow, that is one tear down!!!!
Upstate New York has been depressed (and depressing) for over a decade - probably longer. I grew up there. I was in a college town (2 colleges actually). That was the only industry and the taxes are unbelieveably high. RE taxes are 4x Virginia’s and state income and sales taxes are higher too.
Actually meant to say 2 or 3 decades.
I grew up near there, too, but in Pennsylvania. They’re having a mini-”boomlet” due to folks who cashed out of Southern PA needing a place to 1031 exchange, such as the fellow with his new 4-wheeler who bought the now non-working farm behind my Dad’s. sigh . . .
100K for a house looks cheap until you realize you’ll be making minimum wage.
At any rate, living there has been no picnic. My Dad lost 2 good jobs in his lifetime (factory jobs that moved to Mexico - one 25 years ago and one last year) and now there’s really no employment left. He was only 2 years from retirement and works the farm but guys younger than he is are very emotionally depressed. Maybe Lynn Swan can do something.
Its DETROIT!?!??!!?! why would ANYONE want to move to that city, the racial prejudice is extreme on all sides. My friend from Mexico told me how the Hispanic community is always facing bigotry from the majority African-American community.
Detroit has lost and continues to lose jobs, it is not a good place to raise a family, no matter where you’re from or who you are.
I grew up in Detroit and I agree with the fact that it is extremely predjudice. It is a very segregated area, which is socially stuck in the stone age. I go back there to visit and am always alarmed at what I see. The people do not recognize it, they are stuck in their own ‘bubble’. It’s unbelievable. Most of my family back there follow the same social patterns as well. It’s unbelievable. The weather is very depressing - grey skies most of the year.
I moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry after college and have never moved back. I love the cultural diversity that Southern California provides. I give thanks everyday that I no longer live in Detroit. People are bitter and unhappy there, but most do not do anything to change their situation. It is very sad.
meant to say ‘never looked back’, not ‘never moved back’.
Yes, SoCal has its problems, and its bigots, but things are much better diversity-wise here than in Detroit.
Harmonious and stable communties with positive attitudes, rather than vendettas and a “score settling” attitude, will do better in the long run. Unfortunately Detroit will always be stuck in anger of the 1960’s
I hope stories like this are soon coming out of the Los Angeles area. Just fifteen minutes ago my wife was saying how we “can’t wait forever” to buy a house. I don’t want to wait forever, but I refuse to buy into an overvalued market. I’ll wait to see what happens now that the music is stopping in the housing “game of musical chairs”.
Hang in there. You will be rewarded soon.
We must wait. Check http://www.themls.com, and look at how many cookie cutter condos have been listed since October. The price WILL come down. I have already noticed, the people who need to sell have made drastic reductions. I check it everyday for West Hollywood and Santa Monica.
I hope to buy with a 7.5% 30 year fixed loan when the creative financing no longer makes sense.
If this is what a Forclosure looks like in Pasadena, I want no part of it…http://guests.themls.com/profile_page.cfm?mls=05-063507
Yeah, nearly three quarters of a million dollars for that dump - why, if I make the money needed to buy that place, would I ever want to live in that place.
Anyone tracks the Ventura market? During the past 3 years, every time I drove down to LA from SB, I was always amazed as the number of new homes underconstruction at the same time. There must be at least tens of thousands of them along US 101.
A few of coworkers of mine living in Ventura county upgraded to new homes before they sell their first homes last year. Now they have been paying two mortgages for 4 to 8 months. They needed the upgrade with their growing families. For a few years, they put their names on builders’ waiting lists and never got a chance until last year. So they jumped at it when the builders called.
Timing is really everything. The seller finds the last fool wins and the rest lose.
I live in Ventura, same as everyplace else with a few exceptions of intensity. Higher prices but higher incomes. Less growth so there won’t be as much oversupply. Restrictive land use policies so there won’t be desperate undercutting. Low ratio of condos/multifamily so rents won’t crater and condos won’t undercut SFRs or the tax base. I wouldn’t live in anything built for less than million anytime in the last 6 years. There’s going to be some extreme FBs and there’s also going to be an unusual phenomena of “owners” disappearing. A large number of homes in Oxnard have been purchased at extreme prices by people without US citizenship with unfavorable loans. We aren’t talking bankruptcy, I mean they’ll disappear and leave the house (mostly) behind without even telling the bank.
Its happened before CIRCA 1981 & 1991….
An interest rate of 7.5% represents a 25% increase from today’s rate of 6%; thus you would need a price drop of 25% to have the same monthly housing cost as today.
That turns out not to be the case after property taxes and principal repayments are taken into account. The numbers would vary depending on how long you owned the property.
link:
I moved to Ann Arbor, 45 minutes from Detroit Metro airport, in 91. Where this guy tried to sell, Northville, is a little burb 15 minutes or so from me, but I barely know the area because we hardly ever venture out of Ann Arbor. It’s a weird way to live, but the few times we’ve gone to Detroit or even its tony burbs we get depressed. I drive the 4 hours to Chicago instead for my city-fix.
The thing that used to be nice about AA is that it is a 130Kperson town but has all this relatively cosmopolitan stuff because of the Uni, and because it has been a haven for those who for some reason don’t want to leave MI but who can’t stand the bigotry, tensions, or parochial quality of closer-to-detroit. also a lot of people (used to, anyway) come for school and don’t want to leave (lots of PhDs per capita, and a scary number of pyschologists!) But it’s losing its special character. It used to feel like an oasis surrounded by farmland and little lakes and sure crappy weather but you’d get very decent entertainment and interesting bookstores and sorta funky cool retail, as well as the intellectual stimulation of the U. But Borders is a chain now (started here in AA ) and what’s the difference if you go to the one in a strip mall here or the one ‘downtown’, where you can’t find parking? And the little independent bookstores are shutting up shop, I can’t afford the funky retail because they cater to the very highest end shoppers and there is no feel of a neighborhood downtown anymore, which used to be the appeal. The lack of some real natural beauty here becomes more apparent over time as the little farms get eaten by mcmansions and condos and the little towns near ann arbor build up charmlessly. the next door town, saline mi, just got written up as one of the best small cities to live in. I looked at houses there a couple years ago, before the RE runup inspired hundreds of new SF and condo units, and the downtown had this fakeness to it, and it was soooo non-diverse. I’ve heard things aren’t selling there either, but still no appreciable price depression that I can see. Ann Arbor gets a lot of its diversity from the U and from the R&D centers here, but with that flattening world, fewer will need to come here.
I bet I’m not alone in feeling like the luster is off, that this area, which has crap weather (when i first moved here we had 32 straight days with no sunshine! no rain either, just bloody grey..talk about SAD!) and very very little natural beauty (the great lakes are nice, but no economy nearby). It feels more and more like there’s no “there” here. If the economy sours,as it’s surely seeming to do, I don’t think people will be hot to ‘invest’ in a house they’d need to stay in for a long time to ride out a downturn. We got all excited 2 or so years ago here because Pfizer promised to build build build, global R&D expansion. But we all know what’s been up with them lately, they need to cut costs. People I know who work there are even more worried than the public face of it…I wouldn’t doubt that new announcements of further cuts get made. Went from woohoo expansion to yourassistoast pretty quickly. The potential ramifications from the auto industry has barely started. I know a number of engineer/project manager types from cos like Visteon who are being asked to work their butts off to restructure stuff and thusly eliminate their jobs. It must feel crap to do. I’d retire early if I could from those jobs! This is not a happy place right now, and since people are only willing to hold their breath and dive into the run-up market because they have been convinced it’s always up up up, the notion of price/rentratios has just got to suddenly be relevant to first-time buyers and getting-out before the getting gets ugly has got to be starting to appeal to those higher-up the ladder. Yeah, New Mexico sounds *much* better!
and I came across this link
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/topzipcodes/
which indicates that ann arbor/detroit area had been among the steepest-increasing on median prices over the past 5 years, in the same boat as the bubbly coasts (and Chicago).
I’ve just been noticing this huge increase in the number of buy/rent-to-buy or just-rent-the-damn-thing-from-me please listings. But still few serious price reductions. I know prices are ’sticky’ in a downward market, but it starts to feel like a conspiracy, where realtors are really reluctant to let sellers start considering just cutting their losses, or waaay minimizing their greed. if people start seeing clearly thru their lies, it’ll make for *depreciation* and that is such a theskyisfalling idea they’d fear widespread panic. I don’t know much about whether this area has seen serious downturn in recent memory.. seems to me though with the run-up in some areas here over the last 5 -10 years, some people can really afford to waay lower asking price and will start to do so soon. I make use of the propertytax assessment data on-line to find out how much someone paid for their house, and decide how much I can cut off asking in an offer. My realtor tells me those sorts of calculations are ridiculous, irrelevant, even when a house has been just sitting around for months and months. They will become relevant soon, I’m guessing.
cheers!
I searched the addresses of family members in Detroit on Zillow. One cousin’s home is worth less than what he bought it for over 5 years ago. My other relatives in the “swanky” Troy area still show gains but the prices are coming down fast.
New Mexico would kick Detriot in the A$$ for appeal. One of the last places in the country that isn’t overly bubbly, and actually has character of its own. And, the weather here in ABQ today is beautiful, sunny skies about 65F, so have fun in Detroit. And not way overpriced like California
I’ll again mention this great article on Detroit from August 2005.
12,000 abandoned homes.
Population shrinking 10,000 per year.
400 to 500 dead bodies being dug up and moved out.
When even the dead won’t stay put, you know it’s bad!
http://www.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2005081618.html
Wow, that’s so sad.
I have always loved Detroit. It really is the worst city in America, an absolute hellhole in every sense of the word. (Gary, Indiana is the worst city period, but it’s smaller than Detroit and is not really a “major” city.) I had a case in Detroit one time, and the federal courthouse, which is located right smack in the middle of downtown near the Rennissance Center, had grafitti on it! So did many of the other office buildings. Parking cost like $1.00, and I actually felt nervous at 9:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. The Detroit skyline is wierd; it looks like it is frozen in time, a skyline from 30 years ago. All of the office buildings except the RenCen are the old, the kind with windows that go up and down, beucase the economy died in the mid-70’s years years ago and nothing modern has been built since then.
When I got gas later that afternoon, people were pulling up and buying fuel in ridiculously small quantities, like $2.00 (this was in 1996 or 1997). The area outside of the center city looks like the surface of the moon. Abandoned buildings and empty, fenced-in lots are everywhere. No people are on the streets. Surreal.
But darn it, I love Detroit. That city just REFUSES TO DIE. Everyone should have packed it in long ago, but people just refuse to give up. You have to admire the tenacity. Also, the people there are very nice. It is the Midwest, after all. I am sorry to hear that Detroit having a rough time, but it has survived worse and I am sure it will still be around decades from now. If I were selling a McMansion there today I’d immediately cut my price by 20%, but Detroit can, believe it or not, be a nice place. I wouldn’t mind living or working there.
Joe Schmoe-
America needs more people like you. Spent the past year in Upstate NY around Albany. Same as the Rochester/Detroit area. Totally deserted cities. City Hall RE Auctions twice a year with HUNDREDS of properties, bidding starts at $100 (yes that’s one hundred dollars).
Friend called to say one side of a whole block in downtown Troy NY was sold for 500K a couple weeks ago.
It must be astounding for somebody from say, Europe, to come here and see how Americans abandon whole cities- a throw-away society in the extreme.
Too much land to build on I guess! Kind of shoots a hole in the “not enough land” theory when you see places like MI and NY and god knows how many other places in the US.
It depends what part of Europe you are talking about. Parts of the old East Germany are in exactly the same position, with the added impetus of a declining population.
Rural Italy and rural France have seen an influx of British retirees and ratrace escapees in the last 10-15 years, precisely because there were old abandoned properties available for a song.
Whoops. Looks like somebody hit the “reply to this comment” link in the lower right of the individual comment boxes.
I cannot see those comments-just a big blank box to me!
spd,
I can see all the boxes. This has come up before. Try rebooting and let me know if it continues to be a problem.
Hi Ben-
I see you’ve “replied to my comment”! BUT!!! I cannot see the comments unless they are entered via the bottom of the page “Add comment” box.
All other comments are blank boxes.
Please post or email what your system is (mac/windows, etc) and the browser you are using..
This is what I see:
blankblankBenJonesblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblamkblankblankblankblankblankblankblankblankreply to this comment
Obviously, I do not atually see the word “blank”-it’s just all blank space. And if somebody puts a smiley face in, I get to see that too.
Uh oh. Did you add that last reply by going to the bottom of the page and clicking on “Add Comment”?
If you did then I’m really in worse shape than I thought here cuz I can’t see it either-just more blank space with your name floating around-not too interesting!
No, I replied to your post.
Okay. Now I’m REALLY stumped. Because the configuration really looks to be that if someone “replies to this comment” then I can’t see it.
But if they add comment at bottom then I CAN see it. the reason i say that is because the borders around the comments are different. Some are self-contained, goldish colored borders. Those are the comments I can see.
Others are goldish colored border with more than one comment inside the whole. In those boxes I see the original comment but none of the replies.
So there’s my “answer” to your comment above. And I know my answer is more than likely gibberish because I could not see your reply/question/statement …whatever you wrote, I can’t see it.
I should clarify that I don’t dislike this area to live in…
It’s just changing in a negative way to me. I do like the people here …at first I missed the ‘edginess’ of the east coast, but I have come to really appreciate the polite solid integrity of the midwest style. some of that is eroding though as everyone spends all their time chattering away on cellphones and community in general declines. good for bidness, i suppose, but bad for feeling that you are part of anything but a collective of consumers who happen to be buying lattes at the same coffeeshops. and once the coffeeshops are all starbucks anyway (here in annarbor we manage to support many independent ones too, and a variety of smaller chains) then the appeal of being in a place where *if* anyone actually interacted much anymore it would be more pleasant than if you were elsewhere in the country starts to have less marginal value.
Climate gets to be more important ya know?
But I still really like some aspects of the community here; a lot of what made it nice lifestylewise is just fading away though, sadly. The houses close to the downtown have like doubled or more in price in the past bunch of years, and so unless you make a buttload of money you are faced with the prospect of needing to eat nothing but macncheese so that you can squeeze into an old (and really rather charmless compared to say even new england housing stock)
small house within walking distance of all those artgalleries expensive boutiques restaurants and entertainment venues that you couldn’t go to without busting your budget. With Detroit so wrecked as the nearby ‘city’ it starts to feel silly to pay a lot for houses near ann arbor as a regional downtown worth going to. It used to feel like a place, with a character and characters and solid old businesses and such, and there isn’t a grocery or a bakery or a pharmacy or a hardware store downtown. as recently as 94 there was a local little dept store even. my favorite off-price bookstore just closed, a little ancient stationers with this great old art-deco signage is being converted to condos or something. even the convenience stores are becoming verizonwireless outlets, and this great oldfashioned place to buy workgear shoes boot and jeans is shutting up shop. they held out a long time in the face of bigboxes I guess. But once the near-downtown population started having to pay so much of its household income on mortgages and prop taxes (it is 2.5% of purchase price per year here!) they *had* to shop at Walmart in the next town over.
I have to laugh a bit about the negative comments regarding Troy, upstate NY and the NE in general. I have lived in both South Florida and the NW part of the country over the last two years. While upstate NY has it’s issues for sure it certainly isn’t any greyer than the NW. I’m at a point I’d rather see a nice landscape of snow with occasional sunny days than 30 day stretches of rain packaged in between 15 days of grey on either side of that. Increasingly Seattle has rising costs of living that are starting to rival other big markets. It also has terrible traffic problems and some of the worst air quality in the country. South Florida is a dangerous hole in my opinion. High crime, dangerous hurricane predictions, one of the largest illiterate populations in the country and costs that far outpace wages. Yes there are problems in upstate NY but a $30-$75G mortgage is probably far more in line with what a lot of people make across the country.
oops…sorry for the formatting problems above! cheers…
Pepe Daniels-
You’re right. Upstate NY is a terrific area. Beautiful lanscape, close to NYC (2and1/2 hrs on train to midtown from Albany and the train makes 16 trips a day!!). 3 hours to Boston and Montreal. 20 min. to VT. border (which feels like a whole new country!).
And the best thing: the people are terrific. Very warm and welcoming (perhaps in part because they have LOST so much population over the years?)
And Seattle IS a polluted, traffic-jammed mess with no plans to rectify the situation- ever.
I know people in Troy who moved out from San Francisco, bought a huge brownstone for @ 40K and are starting a community/arts center.
There is definitely opportunity there for CA folks and others with equity who are looking to start a whole new adventure. And, like I said, you will be welcomed into the community with open arms.
It is a mysterty to me why the Albany area is so deserted considering the general location and flat out energy of the folks who DO remain there.
I think part of the reason is outlandishly high property taxes, weather (let’s face it, below zero with the wind whipping down the Hudson River on top of it for a good 6 weeks of most years, 90 degree + humidity in the summer- not too wonderful) and some kind of entrenched political decay is killing the area.
Anyway, on the Troy city website they bill themseves as the “Silicon Valley of the 19 century” and that about sums it up I guess. It was a real economic powerhouse in the early to mid 1800’s.
Shel-
Yes, Kodak is Rochester. And Kodak’s taken some big hits over the years.
as stated above, Troy was big in iron works @ the Civil War. Schenectady is where GE was born. It has since moved on to other areas of the country. But before it left Schenectady, GE and it’s well-employed workers built one of the most beautiful little cities I’ve ever seen anywhere- in the early 1900’s. Now Schenectady is a decaying mess but the beautiful bones are still there.
This being America however, highly doubtful anyone will jump in and save Schenectady. We’re all about throwing it away and off to the burbs.
Don’t know what built Albany, besides the Dutch in the 1600’s and it’s being the State capitol.
Seeing these old industrial powerhouses in decay really makes me wonder what the new high tech powerhouses, like CA and Seattle, are going to look like in 50 years.