Detroit - yes or no?

[Robin Secord]

Would you invest in Detroit? Why or why not?  If you are a current investor, what are you seeing as far as market growth & demand?

[Georges A.]

Here's my take on Detroit and why I would invest in it but not this year.

- look at the historical data of the sales. For example a property gets sold for 50k, then 1 yr later will be sold for 20k then 6 month later For 5k, then a few months later for 1k. That's a consistent trend in a lot of properties there. That means that investors are entering the market for a quick flip, losing their money, and selling at a loss.

- buy and hold would be my only option to invest in Detroit. However, I think they JUST hit rock bottom and didn't start recovering fast enough yet as many are saying. The only investors that are throwing the big bucks at it (like quicken's founder) can afford to wait a very long time before seeing any returns. I know I can't. So what I am going to do is take a look at it a year from now and see how that progress is going. Maybe I will lose some momentum but I prefer less profit rather than a deadbeat investment.

- finally, who's going to manage it for you? The amount of corruption there is ridiculous. The avg response time for the police is 45min. I know I def don't want to move there. This is a very important question, as you're surrounded by bad quality tenants and potentially corrupted PMs.

In conclusion, I think it's high risk high return investment. So stick to the areas that are relatively okay vs. the areas that are isolated and aren't seeing any signs of progress