All Forum Posts by: Christian Hutchinson

Detroit has depressed property values.  Thats a fact.

A 3b/1ba house might run you $40K you rent it for $750 maybe $800 a month.

Property taxes and insurance are notoriously high.

Property crimes are very much an issue.

If you get a 2-4 unit fixer in Detroit because it has new updates, you would get $600/mo on a 2 bedroom, or a 700/mo on a 3 bedroom (duplex). Thats because property taxes and insurances are fixed basically. So for say $60K I get $1200/mo in rents at least.

Subsequently if/when a tenant moves out you don't have to worry about an empty property and HWT, furnaces, copper piping disappearing. Because there is still someone in the property, so the thieves pick an easier target.

Your best bet to make some good money in Detroit, get a fixer upper 2-4 Unit in Detroit.  Good rents, and you mitigate risks.

I tell all my tenants you are under lease. With that said if your situation changes and you can not honor the payments or duration call me or send me an email.  We can figure out a transition plan. Because lets be honest once someone stops paying you that money will never be recouped. I ruin their credit and don't get my money. Then I have watch my back too? I'm not going through that for at best $1000, it cost $1000 to evict someone in my State.

So settling the matter favorable to all parties is best.

Tell them if you cant afford your lease I'll release you, I've released people for way less than terminal illness.

IDK know if we are becoming risk averse, or lazy.  But the deals are tough to come by and anything worth any value is high risk.  We found a nice home in the burbs 2 months ago but it was owned by a Non-Profit.  So it needed reassessment, plus it needed some model removal that required permits. The potential tax increase hurt the deal, because the property taxes are uncapped on sale. Then the mold issue though seemed minor, we felt the City would turn it into a have to remodel the whole house thing, not just fix the mold.

We are still looking, though.

In all honesty I avoid doing business with attorneys. They are terrible to be in business with.  I had a newly graduated attorney looking at an apartment couple years back.  They asked to see the lease before they applied.  Which okay normally I give people a lease once they qualify but whatever.  Then he saw I had in my lease that disputes are taken to arbitration first before any court filings.  That was for me as a landlord or them as a tenant. He took exception to that questioning why I didn't want to go to court to settle a problem.

It was lost on him that:

A) I was trying to set an expectation if we have a problem lets see if we can work it out.

B) Court involves lots of time sitting around waiting, paperwork etc, and frankly I have other things to do than take a 1/2 day off work for a 10 minute court session.

C) Its expensive versus $150 to an attorney to hear our issues and resolve it. If we can't then we can go to court.

Needless to say I decide to go with a different applicant.  Every time I have dealt with an attorney regarding business matters 75% of the conversation is about litigation. Which though is important they are things more important.  We had an attorney on a project at work; a database was suppose to deliver data to another external database.  Obviously we have rules around PII/PIFI but Engineers and Analyst are worried about server capacity, cadence, and content delivery and the Lawyer is talking about actions we can take against client (who we do millions of dollars of business with) for failure to perform, assignment of damages based on where the system fails. Again, important stuff but its stuff like that why people want to avoid lawyers. We are trying to build a product that will make tons of money and the Lawyer is engaging in "risk mitigation" stripping it of its capabilities to reduce the chance of potential lawsuit.

 If you have $10K I suggest you do maybe BuildingDetroit.org

You would be owner occupants, you buy a house cash.  You get some renovation money with the special financing available for owner occupants.  Try to target a Multi-Family.  You fix up one unit move in it, fix up the 2nd unit and rent it out.  Then in 3-5 years you move to your "permanent" house you will have two rental units that most likely pay for both your old home and existing.

Because your cost to buy is so low < $5000 you can buy the property, shop for renovation money, maintain an apartment (small studio or 1 bedroom) while the place gets livable.

If your partner does basic construction he will know people who can do the heavier stuff, he doesn't do personally.

always willing to talk shop. I have SFH, and 2-4 unit properties in Metro Detroit and Toronto, ON. Plus I love free stuff.

Hi have a close friend who been living in Brooklyn for 11 years now.  His building is being converted from apartments to Condos or Co-Op.  They are offering current tenants $625K to purchase their places.  His is 1000 sq ft 1b/1ba. The place is right next to between Eastern Parkway and Empire. next to the BK Museum, Botanical Gardens, and Prospect Park. He wanted to know if we would be interested in purchasing it.  What are the typical monthly fees and taxes on a place like this?

Is this an unreasonable price?

@Victoria C.

I would cut my teeth in the Detroit Suburbs, get a feel for the area.  Then do a 3rd or 4th property in the City.  You need to have contractors, and network of people you can trust.  If you go right into Detroit and try to do this the wolves will eat you alive.  I have a property owner myself and some buddies are trying to save right now.  He has had contractors and PM's take him for $30K in 4 years, his places are still in shambles.  We are stepping in to help because we all improved our properties and have tenants, now his properties are becoming targets for crime.

 I don't know if you remember the Victory Inn on Michigan Ave. But basically those places attracted a certain element. I recently listed a small studio on AirBnB to test the market. Immediately I got 8 to 10 bookings from a male and female in the next 90 days for 2 or 3 days at a time. Well the thing that was alarming was they live in Metro Detroit. I got a bad vibe. But when your place is renting for $22 to $30 a day for the criminal element you become a vehicle for them to conduct bussiness.

I ultimately delisted and placed a longterm tenant. Canceling my hosting listing. With my other long-term tenants in the building it was too risky.

Based on what I am hearing people up to no good are leveraging the technology.