Detroit Foreclosed Home Listed For Sale For $1 Takes 19 Days To Sell; Costs Bank $10K To Unload

In Detroit, Michigan, The Detroit News reports:

• One dollar can get you a large soda at McDonald's, a used VHS movie at 7-Eleven or a house in Detroit. The fact that a home on the city's east side was listed for $1 recently shows how depressed the real estate market has become in one of America's poorest big cities. And it still took 19 days to find a buyer.

• The sale price of the home may be an anomaly, but illustrates both the depths of the foreclosure crisis in Detroit and the rapid scuttling of vacant homes in some of the city's impoverished neighborhoods.

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• Put on the market in January for $1,100, the house had no lookers other than the squatters who sometimes stayed there at night. Facing $4,000 in back taxes and a large unpaid water bill, the bank that owned the property lowered the price to $1.(1)

• While it's not unusual for $1 to be exchanged when property is transferred for legal reasons, listing a home in the Multiple Listing Service for $1 was surprising and unsettling to Kent Colpaert, the listing real estate agent for the property. "I've never seen a home listed for $1," Colpaert said. "But it's been hit hard: It's just a shell." On Tuesday, Realtor.com listed one other single-family home, one duplex and one empty lot at $1 in Detroit.

For more, see Foreclosure fallout: Houses go for a $1.

Go here, Go here, Go here, and Go here for other posts on vacant homes leaving their mark on neighborhoods.

(1) According to the story, so desperate was the bank owner to unload the property that it agreed to pay $2,500 in sales commission and another $1,000 bonus for closing the $1 sale; the bank also will pay $500 of the buyer's closing costs. Throw in back taxes and a water bill, and unloading the house will cost the bank about $10,000. ForeclosuresDestroyNeighborhoodsApple