All Forum Posts by: Dustin Zentz

@Benjamin Timmins, Please feel free to chime in at any time.....

@Tom A., thanks for posting the link. I'll check it out!

Thanks @Jean Bolger, It sounds like you have a good thing going in Denver! I'm a musician/artist too and I think that real estate can be one of the best ways to help facilitate a career in the arts. 

@Richard Dunlop, I agree. Detroit is moving fast, but luckily it sill has so much room for improvement and plenty of inventory. Let's just hope it can keep a reasonable, steady pace, and create a sustainable economy.....Fingers crossed.

@Marvin Rice, I couldn't agree more. The homes in Boston Edison, and Indian Village are what really drew us to Detroit, but after moving to Ferndale and driving through Sherwood, we knew that that was where we wanted to start. 

Thanks @Alan Brown! Montana sure wouldn't be what it is today, if it wasn't for the bold....My wife is actually from Missoula, I love it there. I've never been to Bozeman, but I've heard many good things. It's on the top of my list of places to eventually buy a place near the slopes! It has most everything Colorado has to offer, but the colder winters seem to keep the overpopulation at bay, which I like.

@George P. I think that Denver has so much to offer, if you can afford it. I found myself becoming one of those frustrated people because I spent most of my time making ends meet. I was spending most of my time in traffic, whether it was for work or to drive to the mountains to play. Then, add the fact that to get your kid into a good school, you need to spend 500K on a house. Don't get me wrong, my CO years were some of the best of my life, but we get older and our priorities change. Once that happened, I felt that Detroit offered opportunities that are hard to come by anywhere else. And I gotta say, it feels pretty nice to live mortgage free in one home and have another that will generate $500 per month income after only 3 months of being here. Also, my wife instantly found a dream job in her field within a month (something that proved almost impossible in Denver's highly competitive market).......I do miss those powder days, though.

@Benjamin Timmins I have friends who have been mugged in Milwaukee, carjacked in Denver, chased in Chicago, jumped in Grand Rapids, assaulted in Montana, etc.....There is no safe city in the US. There are some that are much safer than others, and there are areas of each one of those cities that are more dangerous than others. If you are cautious, responsible and educated, you can minimize your risk, but you can never mitigate it entirely, no matter where you live. Your viewpoint is what promotes economic and social segregation, and stifles Detroit's potential. I might get mugged walking out my door, but it won't send me running to Utica.

UPDATE: Six months ago, I became a member of Bigger Pockets and published this post considering a move. We made it to Detroit and are now closing on 2 homes in the next 2 weeks. The first, is a HUD home in Oak Park (a suburb, north of Detroit), and the second is a short sale in the Sherwood Forest/Green Acres neighborhood (North Detroit, just south of 8 mile). We financed the Oak Park house and bought the Sherwood house with cash. Our plan is to do a live in/fix up in the Oak Park house right away. It shouldn't take long to do, because it's mostly just lipstick....Sherwood is going to be more involved and it is double the sf.. I'll be doing much of the work myself, but hiring out electrical, plumbing and floor refinishing (labor prices are very reasonable here, compared to Colorado). I'd like to thank everyone who chimed in on this post with great advice and words of encouragement, especially Dan Mullins and Richard Dunlop. Detroit gets a lot of bad press, but my personal experience so far has been a good one. The people have really been great. I take my 14 month old son to the Meijer on 8 mile on a regular basis, and I've never experienced so many smiles, and friendly conversations, anywhere. Ferndale and Royal Oak have great bars and restaurants, Belle Isle is scenic and quiet, Detroit has beautiful historic homes and great museums (thank God the DIA kept it's collection), and you can really feel the excitement that is building around the cities rebound. That said, there is still a lot of work to be done, and it is still really rough in many parts. But, I hope that it becomes the socially progressive, entrepreneurial, artistic, and culturally diverse example of what a city can and should be.