A Detroit House Offered At $9,500

Detroit is still plagued by blighted neighborhoods, a sky-high poverty rate, and crime infested areas. That is among the reasons some houses in the city sell for well below the national average, and even the average price in the shrinking city. One home for sale has a price of $9,500, almost unimaginably cheap.

Located at 14281 Camden St., the bungalow style property is tiny, at 894 square feet. It has three bedrooms which cannot be much bigger than some closets in other homes. It also has one bathroom. The house sits on a lot which measures 3,845 square feet.

Realtor.com describes the house: “No, the price isn’t a typo! The three-bedroom brick bungalow from 1953 still has original details, like hardwood floors and a pink bathroom. But a buyer must be prepared to rehab the whole thing.” Detoit had a population of 1,849,568 in 1950. It dropped to 673,104 in 2017 according to a Census estimate.

The house sits in Ravendale which has been described as among the “8 most abandoned neighborhoods in Detroit.” Thirty-six percent of the homes in this section of Detroit have been abandoned. Motor City Muckracker’s editor writes, “Bordering a blighted stretch of Gratiot to the west, this neighborhood has a lot of bungalows and other middle-income homes built primarily in the 1920s. The abandonment changes drastically by the block, with some streets lined with empty lots and crumbling houses.”

Ironically, the Ravendale area sites just north of one of the most prosperous towns in America–Grosse Point, where homes sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. Many have stunning views of Lake St. Claire.

Despite talk of the renaissance of Detroit, most of the areas which have been improved are close to the Detroit River around the General Motors Company headquarters, and near the professional baseball and football stadiums known as Ford Field and Comerica Park. Most of Detroit’s 143 square miles has little in common with this section of the city. An editor for the Detroit News wrote a little more than a year ago, “But the city’s poverty rate of 34.5 didn’t change significantly in 2017, although it is down from 40.7 percent five years ago.”

The house at 14281 Camden St. may cost only $9,500, but it may be difficult to find anyone to live there. The listing:

MUST SEE INVESTOR SPECIAL, 3 BEDROOM 1 BATHROOM, KITCHEN, LIVING ROOM, AND DINING ROOM. BEAUTIFUL BRICK HOME. HARDWOOD FLOORS! HOME NEEDS REHAB WORK. HOME SOLD AS IS. SELLER WILL SELL ON QUIT CLAIM.