All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Streamer

 Thanks!  The bathroom upgrades are in progress right now.  Except for the counter top.  Turns out the vanity isn't a standard size, so a new counter top would have to be custom made.  We'll wait until we replace the vanity someday.  We're switching out the faucets, hardware and lighting.  The bathroom tile is original, I believe, but it's an attractive shade of tan (rather than pink or powder blue!) and it's in perfect condition.  A few tiles were loose, so we reset them.  The toilet is newer.

I'm surprised people are surprised by the black ceilings!  All my friends are doing it and it looks amazing.  So much more headroom than a drop ceiling and it gives a cool, loft vibe.  But we've decided to skip it and just leave the ceiling open.  The basement is drywalled, but it looks like it was a DIY project.  Not awful, but not great.  Good enough.  There is no trim, which bugs me, but we're going to leave it as is.

We've gotten a new quote on the grade.  $600 for grade only if we seed.  $900 for grade and sod.  That's $500 less than the first quote and so we're going to go for it - if they can schedule us in.  The $300 more for sod vs. seed is less than a week worth of rent, so if it gets a tenant in faster, it will pay for itself.  The basement wall is slightly moist after it rains, and I'm sure this will help.

You think $1400 is too little?  It's 970 square feet - a bungalow.  It looks like it fits in among the other homes that have been for rent this spring at that price.

It's 1.5 miles to downtown.  So an easy bike ride and walkable, but not a stroll.

 Thanks for the local perspective.  We've decided we'll do the bathroom upgrades and skip the ceiling.

We're still figuring out how to handle the yard.  We're eager to get it rented out in the next couple of weeks.  If the seeded area turns people off, it could cost us more in rent than the cost of the sod...  We're expecting another quote today to do just part of the yard.  The grading will be expensive unless we do it ourselves, regardless of what we do with the grass.  

I also start with rentometer.  Then over the course of a couple of weeks I look at all the rental properties on Zillow.  (Actual listings, not the zestimate)  I sort them low to high. It's usually clear where my house will fit into the mix.  For example my house may be nicer than all of the houses listed for 1100, 1200 or $1300.  Some of the houses between $1300 and $1500 are a little nicer or a little worse.  Houses over 1500 are much nicer!  So now I know 1300 to 1500 is my sweet spot.  I continue to review every house that comes on the market between 1300 and 1500 to see what my competitive price point.

I drive by houses that seem like a good match and attend the open houses if they have them.  After doing all of that it's usually  straightforward  to price.

 We were just discussing that very thing. It just means a lot of digging to knock down that hill! But we have places to move the dirt in some planting beds along the fence.  We have some serious digging in our future!  Thanks so much for brainstorming.

 I just double checked the receipts. I wondered if I was forgetting something! But that number is right. We did all of the work ourselves, except for about $200 of electrical and 700 to have the hot water tank installed. That was a coupon on Angie's list :-). We had a lot of the other supplies on hand because we do a lot of rehab work.  

This is our first property in a higher and neighborhood. That's why I'm considering the New bathroom faucet and countertop and a few other cosmetic updates.  There are some beautiful properties for rent around here.  The typical tenant is a medical resident, pilot, or a young professional.  We might get a couple.  We are not asking the top of the market for rent but we are not at the bottom either.  I'm not sure how far the amenities go toward making the property desirable.

I would have left the side as is, except for the grading issue. We don't want water running toward the house. That's why this is such a dilemma. Do we do the job halfway and only solve the maintenance problem or do we go all in and make it look really good?

 The seed is a great idea.  We're hoping to rent out soon, so I wasn't sure if that would turn off prospective tenants too much.  But I hadn't considered that some grass might sprout more quickly than others!  Thanks for the idea.

We've recently closed on a SFH in Royal Oak, MI that we intend to keep as a buy and hold. The house was in pretty good shape - fresh paint and carpet, new kitchen with granite counter tops, and new windows. I would have been comfortable moving right in.

We've been doing some light rehab including:

• New flooring in laundry room
• New hot water tank
• Faux wood blinds throughout
• touch up paint, where needed
• Bringing some electrical up to code
• Installing a microwave
• Bathroom:  Grouting tub, replacing some damaged tiles, fixing exhaust fan, re-trimming window, new showerhead
• New smoke detectors
• Painting some built-ins in the basement that were bare wood
• Finishing off a bar in the basement
• Powerwash of exterior
• New address sign
• New mailbox
• Repair of interior and exterior doors
• Dealing with a disaster of a yard!  We've filled over 50 bags with yard waste including trees.

We've spent about 2K on renos.  The property cost $139,900 and we got $1,500 back for repairs.  That was fair.  It sold in less than a day with multiple offers, so I feel like we did well.  We expect to get $1425 per month in rent.  

Here's the question.  How much further should we go?  We're considering:

• Replacing decent bathroom countertop with granite ($200)
• New bathroom faucet ($80)
• New bathroom light fixture ($40)
• Spraying basement ceiling black ($700) - basement is finished and ceiling currently painted tan but black is all the rage around here
• And here's the biggy - resod the backyard.  ($1400)

The re-sod project is tricky.  After we cleared a yard full of scrub, we found a 10x10 hill sloping towards the house.  That needs to be regraded for maintenance reasons.  Which leaves us with a bare chunk of yard.  New sod will stick out like a sore thumb if it's just done in one place.  To redo the whole yard is so expensive!  We realized there were some grading problems, but it's worse that we expected.  What to do?  Should we just hand dig and level the hill and put in the sod?  How much value does fresh sod add?

I'm worried the tenants may not maintain the yard over the long term and the grass will look bad in a couple of years.  But our grade will be correct.  

Any insights will be appreciated!  And if anyone happens to know of a company that can regrade on the cheap in the area, let me know.

 Southgate is an interesting area to look at.  My family lived there for five years when I was in my teens.  It was decimated during the recession.  Where there once were gift shops, now there are pawn shops.  But the prices seem to be slowly bouncing back.

The house where my family lived was a lovely, 1500 square foot brick bungalow on a beautiful street:  

http://www.zillow.com/homes/12753-Catalpa-Southgat...

 Zillow doesn't go back this far on this house, but they paid 81K in late 1993.  They sold for 160K in 2000.  It most recently sold for 45K.  

I don't know if the areas that went downhill during the recession will really turn back around or will continue to decline.  Warren is similar to Southgate, on the North side.  Will the revitalization of Detroit help?  Probably.

I firmly believe that progress in Detroit will drive appreciation in a city like Trenton.  If someone prefers the suburbs, then nice suburban cities within a commute of Detroit will become more desirable.  The same would be true of any big city - Westport, Connecticut is high priced because families can enjoy the suburbs and still easily access work and recreation in the city.  If you have to drive past some rough areas, it makes no difference.  When I lived downriver, I never took Fort Street into Detroit.  I always took the expressway.  That doesn't take away from the good things happening in Detroit - it adds to them.  Plus, if it becomes important to live near Detroit, cities that have been declining (like Southgate in your next post) will start to improve, too.

YES - if a house is under 25K, in Wayne County - including Detroit - proceed with extreme caution.  There is probably something very wrong with the house or the neighborhood.  Not every area will bounce back.  Some will spiral the drain forever.  Especially in Detroit, because the population would need to increase by nearly a million to fill in every neighborhood!

We're all over the place with this....  To answer your comment about a house in a 50K neighborhood needs 75K in repairs, walk away :-)  In my house hunting, in general, I'm finding that turnkey homes are a better value than fixer uppers.  I looked at two houses last month in Royal Oak.  They were on the same street, within a block of each other.  The first house was 135K (house A) the second house was 140K  (House B).  They had identical floor plans.  House B was on a slightly better lot.  House A needed 25K in updates.  House B needed 5k in updates.  After the updates, Either would sell for around 155K.   We closed on House B last week.  Both homes sold within 24 hours.  I assume an owner occupant bought house A!

O ne quibble - I wouldn't say that Detroit is most of Wayne County.  In 2014, Wayne County's population was 1,764,804 vs around 700,000 for Detroit.  So a million people in Wayne County live outside of Detroit.  Wayne County is 612 square miles and Detroit is around 143.  

Whenever I look at pricing statistics for housing, I try to do a reality check by tracking several individual houses that have been bought and sold in that time frame.  A large number of distressed homes suddenly being sold could pull the average price down.  As the distressed homes are being cleared from the market, non-distressed homes are what remains, increasing the average sales price.  

Hmmm... not sure I'm explaining myself well.  I'll try this - A nicely updated 3/2 ranch in Trenton, Michigan may have sold for 114,500 on average this year.  It probably sold for 112,500 last year.  It may sell for 116,500 next year.  That particular house, in an updated condition, would never have sold for 80,000 (last years average for Wayne County).  So that house did not experience 43.1% appreciation, but rather 2%.  The large number of distressed homes sold in past years pulled down the statistical average selling price for the region.

I have doubts that Wayne County (outside of Detroit) will appreciate more quickly that Oakland County on an individual house basis because few high income earners deliberately relocate there.  We're a good example.  I grew up and lived in Riverview for most of my life.  My husband and I lived there after we got married.  Riverview has great schools, beautiful parks, and houses cost half what they do in Royal Oak.  But there are very few jobs in our fields within a 15 minute commute.  Sure, there are doctors, lawyers and teachers scattered around.  But it's a pretty blue collar area, overall.  So we moved north of the city to save on commuting time.  

All that said, it's still possible to do well with buy and hold in Wayne County.  I have a friend who owns homes in Lincoln park.  Every 18 months, she brings in enough rent to cover the entire original purchase price of the home!  

But since we're focusing on Detroit in this thread, I'll try to bring my focus back there :-)  But the context of all the surrounding areas is important!  I would without a doubt live in downtown, midtown, or Palmer Woods, or Boston Edison over and above Lincoln Park, Hazel Park, Eastpoint or Ecorse.  I'd use the money I saved on housing to send my kids to Cranbrook.  (I'll talk myself into it if I'm not careful!)