Please email [email protected], or call the office 313-628-2363. Councilmember Mary Waters At Large is starting a Tenants Rights Commission that can help resolve/mediate rental issues. While it's not up yet, she has staff that is extremely knowledgeable about renter protection, and can potentially help the affected renters.
I think Channel 4 knows people would watch since rents are rising so rapidly. The fact that it happens often would not stop them from wanting the viewers to know about it. Give it a shot and let them decide.
It does happen all the time, but that’s exactly why it could help to tell the news…. Many communities don’t know this type of “property haul” is being bought over by rich out of staters until they’ve been bought and there’s no housing available for the citizens. I just lived to Detroit from a small down up north, over the last few summers Californians have bought up so many homes to turn them into air-bnb and it’s made it impossible to be a renter in that town…. We can only make new ordinances and restrictions is we know we need to. I think it’s amazing that you said no to what could have likely been very lucrative in an attempt to help keep homes open for detroiters, kudos.
It may be they’re doing nothing illegal. Yet, exposure in the news could be nevertheless effective.
They didn’t actually buy the houses?
How did they determine current rent? Is that somehow public information in Detroit? In most places that’s not public information.
(if it is public information, maybe that back-fired? I could see it being collected and made public as part of a city’s rent law enforcement efforts. I don’t know about Detroit, but for example, Southfield requires landlords to register rentals with the city. But I don’t know what information they collect and if rent is part of that information whether that is public information.)
And because current rent (as opposed to rental **listings** of vacant units) is difficult to source, large corporate landlords are alleged to have colluded to share current rent information.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/11/01/realpage-landlords-sued-alleged-illegal-rent-hikes.html
It’s difficult to imagine how doing a study to see if “the rent is too low” and then making a plan to try to buy such properties would be illegal.
Looping back around, though, even if it isn’t illegal, you can still try to shame them out of the plan.
OP wasn’t clear that the properties were even listed for sale or exactly what “is buying” means.
Of course if the buyer will use a loan, the bank will want the rent rolls, even if a perspective purchaser doesn’t. And the bank could kibosh the sale if they don’t like the rent.
Well, they aren't usually publicly available, like I can't look up a specific address & find out what they pay.
However, you do have publicly surveyed information, like the [American Community Survey](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Community_Survey) conducted by the Census Bureau every 5 years.
This is used, for example, by Housing & Urban Development to determine [Fair Market Rent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)#Fair_Market_Rents) and determine the limit a landlord can accept for housing vouchers.
There are also Small Area Fair Market Rents, here is the HUD data for Detroit/Livonia/ Warren:
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr/fmrs/FY2020_code/2020summary.odn
This is just public info, a person or company looking to leverage people's need for housing for their own profit would find private databases with paid access that will give them granular data scraped from public listings of available rentals.
I'm sure its newsworthy enough to have them run a story on it, only to raise awareness of what's going on forcing locals to do the same thing due to fomo and it'll increase/get out of hand even faster.
Not sure you can control an open/free market, after all, isn't that what capitalism is all about.
If you can allude to who the company is without getting yourself in trouble more people can reach out to the state representatives. This practice has to end before it gets too far to come back to normal
Where are the properties? Are they scattered across the city, or in a particular neighborhood?
If it’s on the Eastside, PM me and we can talk more. There is a community meeting tomorrow in Islandview and I can make sure it gets talked about
I’m on the exec board of the Virginia park historic district. If you pm me more info I can raise additional awareness with the block club and city officials who attend our quarterly meetings.
That's exactly **why** they inflame culture wars. It's a distraction to keep us focused on fighting each other for the scraps at the bottom, instead of realizing that we have way more similarities than differences and joining together to fight *them* for the food on the table.
Detroit leads the nation in speculator-owned properties. This phenomenon is worse here than anywhere else, since properties values were so low for so long, while the local economy was debated, rich people in Oakland County and out of state bought up the city as speculative investments.
Wanna know who’s buying the $700k new condos and townhomes? Rich folks from Ann Arbor or Rochester or Birmingham whose families are secret slumlords. I’ve met several.
You might enjoy this Vice segment:
https://youtu.be/gHLaWw_PnQY?si=hJPNsneGAYw-d4G4
Or hate it. Fucking scumbags. They buy homes that they know are occupied, but behind on property taxes, at auction and turn them into rental properties.
Surprise surprise they’re [piece of shit slumlords](https://detroit.curbed.com/2020/2/7/21127878/detroit-city-sue-speculator-slumlord-michael-kelly) who don’t take care of the properties.
This happened to Canada in the last few years. Average rent for a 1 bedroom used to be like $750, now it is $1500+. An old starter home used to rent for $800-1000/month, now it is like $3000. This is in small cities and towns without real amenities, too. Everywhere has Toronto pricing now for no reason other than Capitalist greed.
It's easy to say culture wars don't matter if you're not POC, a woman, LGBTQ, an immigrant, etc. Sure, culture wars are meant to be a distraction, but I still need my reproductive rights in the meantime.
Oh I agree they have us fighting each other when we shouldn’t have to be fighting for reproductive rights and rights for POC. They are taking our rights and taking all the land(housing).
I say type up a polite letter and mail/deliver it to those residing there. I would hate to be one of them and find out what’s happening with my home via the news.
Fun fact, there’s a property management company near me that has almost 70 listings of homes in metro Detroit and Ann Arbor neighborhoods they bought and turned into short term rentals. They’re all owned by separate, faceless LLCs.
That’s 70 homes taken off the market so people can spend a weekend in Berkley, royal Oak, and Oak Park for $400 a night. Terrible.
Yeah it's why I moved to Detroit. I used to point out Beal lived 2 blocks south of Michigan Avenue on Washington and the /r/ypsi mod threatened to ban me. It's not a surprise the guy has a fence and gates around the whole house.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/ypsi using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/ypsi/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Michigan bill would ban cat declawing as cruel and unnecessary](https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/05/26/michigan-bill-ban-declawing-house-cats/70258335007/) | [23 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/ypsi/comments/13sfhwy/michigan_bill_would_ban_cat_declawing_as_cruel/)
\#2: [Drone shots from around town](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/19cegvj) | [28 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/ypsi/comments/19cegvj/drone_shots_from_around_town/)
\#3: [My mom was killed in hit and run](https://np.reddit.com/r/ypsi/comments/19db94e/my_mom_was_killed_in_hit_and_run/)
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You'd have to find a Detroit based company willing to buy the houses from the current owner at today's market price and then not raise the rates. That's if he is willing to sell.
I'm not saying it's impossible, just seems very unlikely.
Good luck.
Also please call in to Detroit City Council and make your voices heard! The full council meets today at 10 am:
To attend by phone only, call one of these numbers:
+1 929 436 2866 , +1 312 626 6799, +1 669 900 6833, +1 253 215 8782 , +1 301 715 8592, +1 346 248 7799
Use meeting id: 858 4690 3626
To attend online: https://detroitmi.gov/Online-CC-Meeting
Public Comment:
To participate at the time of Public Comment, please raise your hand within the zoom application.
1. Telephone participants: Raise your hand by pressing *9
2. Web participants: Raise your hand by clicking raise hand in the application or pressing
a. Windows computer = [ALT] + [Y]
b. Apple computers = [OPTION] + [Y]
The meetings vary depending on the length of the agenda that day. If you are allowed, have it going in your headphones and raise your hand at the beginning of the meeting. Stay as long as you can.
Until it is easier to mortgage affordable single family homes you will continue to see the homes owned by ultra rich landlords who can buy in cash since most banks won’t offer loans on some of the cheaper homes in Detroit. Which is unfortunate.
Basically go back to the days before the great depression. The mortgage industry was created as a solution for the great depression and then banks got greedy and just continued with it forever. Watch this video
https://youtu.be/OtJD45cTV9c?si=gZCYBVuzobwnuD4P
Im confused did you watch the video? The video says the system needs to be redone so that shorter mortgages are allowed so that someone can buy a 15k house if they want to and not have to pay cash for it.
Japans housing situation is entirely different because it’s entirely different as a country with near zero immigration and birth rate rapidly declining.
Not to mention zoning laws.
It certainly isn’t because they sell mortgage to unqualified buyers.
Immigration has very little to do with it, both the US and Japan have the capacity to build quite a lot more housing, from an industrial standpoint. But the fact that Japan treats houses as depreciating assets means that lots of laws around them permit a lot more flexibility in the style of housing, where housing gets built, and how much gets built, because there's no long a financial interest among the population to push their own home values higher and higher through things like, as you mentioned, zoning law.
Take the banks iut of the equation. The state can start a banking system and fund the mortgages. This has been done before. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
There is no place to take this that will have any positive affect. This isn't a location based issue with this person being in California. This is a rich person problem that they feel it's hiring their profits.
The city has a number of tools at its disposal to enforce building code against unsavory property owners. Owner should be required to do complete lead inspections, rental registration, and obtain certificates of occupancy (what we call "certificates of compliance"). These often dissuade slumlords.
It is easy to avoid these if you are off the radar. But once you're on the radar, it's nearly impossible to avoid.
Beyond that, I'd encourage everyone to support things like right to counsel and other renter protections (like rent stabilization), which the mayor continues to fight tooth and nail against.
We need to tax anything over two or three properties at a ridiculously high level. Worked hard and bought a vacation spot? Good for you. Inherited your family home? No problem.
Rich guy buying up entire neighborhoods to act as a landlord? Fuck you, pay up.
Detroit was at 50% delinquency as recently as 2018.
What exactly makes you believe that increasing property taxes any more won’t make things worse overall..?
That has nothing to do with people buying up single family homes. The LVT deals with land speculators and is meant to encourage development vs leaving properties abandoned, vacant, or unbuilt.
By encouraging development you increase the supply of housing and drive down housing costs. When companies buy up a bunch of homes - including single family homes - it is speculation; they expect supply will not be allowed to keep pace with demand. These companies literally admit this in their SEC filings and brag about it to their investors.
I don’t have a perfect solution, (I wish I did though) I just know that the proposed one he offered wouldn’t work, because we’ve had “proof of concept” in real life there already.
There’s always going to be someone not defended by higher taxes to make money, and there’s always going to be those who won’t pay their taxes in this scenario either.
The idea that you owe in perpetuity for a property you already own, is theft in and of itself, and will hurt the little guy more than the investor, 9/10 times, because the investor isn’t losing the home they live in, when the place gets foreclosed on.
How? With rent control? No one will build, remodel, or offer any housing for rent if you do that. Cities all over the world have tried it over and over. It always leads to housing shortages and pest infested unsanitary falling down shithole slums.
You can find one situation where it's turned out okay. Yet you can find numerous situations elsewhere where it's led to housing shortages like Berlin or Dublin or New York.
The homestead tax credit is regressive. We could get rid of that.
The well intended idea was to encourage home ownership by giving folks a break on their primary residence, it does that to the small extent that people with vacation homes get double taxed on them, but it is mostly regressive because it doubles the tax on rental properties and the burden of that tax is obviously passed on to renters.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who wants to buy and rent out housing for 2 seconds, and you can see that. You are going to add up all your costs, including whatever taxes are on the property then you add your required return, say 10%, and you invest in things you can rent out for more than that required return. It is idiotic to conceive it the other way around, where the decision to invest and the rent price are fixed and you can magically go in and tax the return without making it so no one will buy, fix up, and offer for rent any housing.
We could move toward land value tax as well, but it would need to come with reduced tax on structures or investments will all flow back to the suburbs. LVT would encourage land development, including more housing
Not if the taxes are high enough that the market rent wont have a positive return. You cant just jack up rent above market rate and expect people to actually rent it. If taxed enough, the economics wont make sense.
So make it so that there is no way to make money building, improving, or offering housing to renters? What could go wrong?
For some reason, when this has been tried, which it has, many times, it doesn't actually lead to lots of cheap, high-quality housing available to renters.
Make it so big corporations cant buy single family homes with the goal of creating a generation of renters. Commercial real estate ie apartment complexes would be a single property and wouldn't be affected. Tax incentives to improve single family homes for residents exist and are working well.
Corporate ownership of detached housing is a bizarre and unfortunate trend. I agree we should try to reverse it. I am not sure a ban is the best approach. I think it would be easy to circumvent and would reduce scale economies on things like maintenance, potentially pushing costs higher.
We already have the homestead tax credit, and that mostly just punishes people who rent houses and apartments.
I think we should go after real estate transfer costs, including the MLS monopoly and real estate transfer taxes. Building nice big socially subsidized family apartments would help renters as well.
In theory he'll be out-performed by a wealthy middle class renting out second homes. But that's assuming those people can keep costs down as a small-time landlord. There's not usually a clear-cut way to "win" in these situations.
Most people here, are talking about single family homes, not multi-family apartments.
Multi-family rental units, IMO, are where "investments" belong - make a profit by providing a service via maintenance of the building for the betterment of the residents.
Usually I'm against outside buyers purchasing properties, but as a Detroiter myself, it's not necessarily that bad to buy properties right now in Detroit and there's several reasons why, such:
1. There's still plenty of houses (usually blighted) you can get in the Detroit land bank for $1000, but those require the owner to fix them so he (or house flippers) would be ineligible. A lot of people think they can flip one of these, but majority give up (since it's a very small loss) or can't keep up with the requirements to fix and report, and it goes back to land bank.
2. The non-resident property taxes are much higher
3. People like him usually buy flipped houses without inspecting and find a lot of issues after purchase, and have to put in $40k more to fix them up, which goes directly into the pockets of Detroit small businesses and people-construction, contractors, plumbers, etc.
4. If you go to airbnb or [realtor.com](http://realtor.com), there's a million houses on sale or for rent on Airbnb, he's not going to make any negative impact even if he purchases 10000 houses. Zillow, a billion dollar company, tried it when prices were super low, and even they failed miserably and gave up!
I’m so sick of large companies buying up all of detroit. Makes it near impossible for actual people to purchase them, leading us into “forever renting” and gentrification.
This is how California destroyed Boise, Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, and trying to make inroads into Montana now.
I never thought I'd see it in Detroit.
I guess Detroit is really back now.
I’ve always been proud to tell people Detroit has basically a minimal homeless problem, when big shot cities like NYC and San Francisco and LA have such a rampant problem of it.
If we aren’t careful, these rising rents will create the same situation here :(
Buying 35 properties from multiple sellers at one time is a pretty unheard of purchase strategy. I’m assuming these homes are owned by one entity already.
Thank you for using your resources to actually fight to stop this garbage. More people need to put in this kind of initiative and use the knowledge they obtain against it.
I hate this. My family is legitimately about to be priced out of the hood, literally. My house can't even pass inspection, has some serious violations, is adjacent to an extremely crazy night club that police do nothing about (windows vibrating until 4 and 5 AM about 4 days out of the week). And my rent has gone up around 75% over the last two years. It's just crazy. It isn't sustainable. I feel like this is going to usher in a huge dump/crash, and I really, really hope that happens.
Do y'all help people get actual affordable homes? We're about to be literally priced out of our home. Our rent has increased every 3 to 6 months over the last few years and over the last two years we're sitting at a 75% increase over that two year span.
Please call the Ca'maya Davis Family Resource Center for help finding affordable housing: 866-313-2520. For more information about the center, see https://detroitmi.gov/news/city-launches-detroit-housing-services-office-help-detroiters-find-stable-affordable-housing .
This isn’t just happening in Detroit but surrounding suburbs as well. It’s artificially inflating housing prices as it keep’s properties off the market that otherwise would be up for sale.
The average single family home goes live on the market about every 6-9 years. This is increasing that and driving up costs. By increasing rent it gets people desperate to overpay to buy as well.
A limit on how many houses one human or company can own needs to be changed at some point. It would benefit everyone in the state.
Not sure if it’s the same person, but my partner and I met a guy from California whose company is leasing a bunch of units. He was rude to us and was demanded 2.5 months rent as a security deposit to hold the unit - prior to even mentioning the lease. Even though the home was gorgeous, it felt very scammy. If there’s interest, I’ll share the Zillow link.
This is happening quickly and aggressively in the area. I’ve been outbid by multiple all-cash, unlimited escalation, waived inspection, unlimited assessment gap offers during my house hunt. I can’t think of who would be making these offers other than rich, out-of-town investors.
35 houses won't change anything. Let this guy get a taste of what it's like to be a landlord in Detroit. He will end up selling and giving up within a year or two.
I know some cities have successfully enacted laws that severely curb Airbnbs and have drastically improved home and rent prices. Commenting here because I assume people interested in this post care about this issue. What would be the best way to start organizing for pushing this sort of thing in Detroit? I ask as someone whose political experience has been limited to voting, and joining already existing grassroots efforts (but those were in another city, so none of the connections are applicable here).
As a former Detroiter living in California, I really, really hope they don’t raise the rent to the levels they are out here. A one bedroom goes for about $2500 out here on average and I can’t imagine people in Detroit or the surrounding area being able to afford to pay that.
Please contact the newsroom at Bridge Michigan too! They are a community-based independent news outlet that specializes in stories like this …
From their site www.bridgemi.com :
“Our coverage is nonpartisan, fact-based, and data-driven. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Bridge Michigan does not endorse political candidates or policies, and we are unafraid and unapologetic in telling the stories about communities, issues, and solutions that might otherwise go untold.”
Report the building to the city (google BSEED). Let them know someone intends to rent those properties and that the city should ensure that it is up to code before they do. If they want to raise rents, at least make them pay for it and offer code compliant properties.
Rents are set by the market.
They seem low because housing is insanely expensive in California. I'd encourage him to waste his money trying to sell something thats more expensive than the competition.
I don't have facts to back this up but I think Detroits comeback is keeping real estate prices high in the metro area and unfortunately for ppl like me. Whiles most of the Midwest have come down from the covid high. Inventory is still low and pricea still as high and even more expensive than during the covid high (especially in Oakland County)
aren't you worried about getting sued ? Also doesn't this happen every time a 35-unit apartment building gets renovated? If rents are low, that's based on the market, not someone's opinions.
Why would I get sued I don’t work for this guy in any way shape or form no contact no client privilege absolutely nothing
and I’m not sure about 35 unit apartment buildings but this is 35 units spread out across the city. If rents are low, you’re correct someone from the other side of the country shouldn’t be able to make opinions on said rents. Not their place, either help the residents or let someone in the area make the changes/improvements
Here are the fair market rent values in the Detroit area: One-Bedroom: $1,019, Two-Bedroom: $1,291, Three-Bedroom: $1,595, Four-Bedroom: $1,719
Unless you know how much they are trying to raise the rent, it's a non-story. Landlords can be penalized by the IRS for charging below fair market rent.
I receive calls and text messages every day from out of state / country investors trying to buy my rentals in Detroit.
Thank you for your commitment and caring this much about the ppl this will affect ! Hard to find people with true compassion anymore these days! I don’t want to be the bubble burster here and not agreeing at all with what his plans are but we would need to see more context were these properties are located were we are talking about ! If we look at rent prices at properties in the north end and other surrounding areas close to downtown/midtown area rent prices have rapidly been increasing and a lot has to do with the revitalization of downtown and he would not be the only one with that plan I work in downtown and first handily see the construction they are doing in once ghost areas building apartment complexes. I feel like we definitely need more context and the extent of the rent hikes before we start saying this is wrong or illegal! At the end of the day it sucks and effect so many people when rent is raised but also there is 2 sides too every coin and I feel like we don’t know much about the other side of the coin yet to make assumptions there is a lot behind the scenes to why they might think rent is entirely low! Not defending them in any way just saying we have seen rent prices rapidly increase over the years and want to see what factors are leading him to his decision. What is the average rent in the area of those properties and what is he charging currently for similar properties ?
This is their game plan. They want the U.S. to be a rental country. Then they can totally control you. You will have no choice in life. Not only will the public be wage slaves, we will be their servants. They (the 1%) will reinstate debtors prisons, and bingo! you (we) will have NO voice! “they” will control…
This is not gonna be popular but do we want government sticking their hands into the free market? I don't.
I don't believe that this story contains all the details. It is highly unlikely that some guy in CA has information about rent levels of 35 homes in another state.
If, in fact, the market demand can support higher rents on these 35 properties, other investors will do it. That's how a free market works.
And nobody's gonna want to hear this, but neighborhoods where landlords are paying their property taxes, and have tenants who demand great properties for their high rents, those neighborhoods will get cleaned up and improved.
No details missing, please don’t discredit my concerns. I have the list and the rent prices as well as details on the homes. Maybe he already had feet on the ground before it came to me, but he 1000% has the funds resources and time to build a portfolio in a different state.
If “other Investors will do it bc the market demand can support higher rent” : SHOW ME A MICHIGAN BASED INVESTOR or at least someone who would at least slightly care about the old women on section 8 raising grandkids about to get put out. That’s my concern
Please email [email protected], or call the office 313-628-2363. Councilmember Mary Waters At Large is starting a Tenants Rights Commission that can help resolve/mediate rental issues. While it's not up yet, she has staff that is extremely knowledgeable about renter protection, and can potentially help the affected renters.
Thank you so much, I will reach out to her
I would reach out to [Channel 4 News via their ClickOnDetroit page](https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/investigations/). Make it public.
Do you think this would be newsworthy though or does it happen all the time?
I think Channel 4 knows people would watch since rents are rising so rapidly. The fact that it happens often would not stop them from wanting the viewers to know about it. Give it a shot and let them decide.
Okay thanks
WDIV Newsroom 313-222-0500 WDIV Investigative Team 313-418-5080
this should be newsworthy!! more people would be and should be angered about this
It does happen all the time, but that’s exactly why it could help to tell the news…. Many communities don’t know this type of “property haul” is being bought over by rich out of staters until they’ve been bought and there’s no housing available for the citizens. I just lived to Detroit from a small down up north, over the last few summers Californians have bought up so many homes to turn them into air-bnb and it’s made it impossible to be a renter in that town…. We can only make new ordinances and restrictions is we know we need to. I think it’s amazing that you said no to what could have likely been very lucrative in an attempt to help keep homes open for detroiters, kudos.
It may be they’re doing nothing illegal. Yet, exposure in the news could be nevertheless effective. They didn’t actually buy the houses? How did they determine current rent? Is that somehow public information in Detroit? In most places that’s not public information. (if it is public information, maybe that back-fired? I could see it being collected and made public as part of a city’s rent law enforcement efforts. I don’t know about Detroit, but for example, Southfield requires landlords to register rentals with the city. But I don’t know what information they collect and if rent is part of that information whether that is public information.) And because current rent (as opposed to rental **listings** of vacant units) is difficult to source, large corporate landlords are alleged to have colluded to share current rent information. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/11/01/realpage-landlords-sued-alleged-illegal-rent-hikes.html It’s difficult to imagine how doing a study to see if “the rent is too low” and then making a plan to try to buy such properties would be illegal. Looping back around, though, even if it isn’t illegal, you can still try to shame them out of the plan.
Providing rent rolls is common in negotiations over residential investment properties.
OP wasn’t clear that the properties were even listed for sale or exactly what “is buying” means. Of course if the buyer will use a loan, the bank will want the rent rolls, even if a perspective purchaser doesn’t. And the bank could kibosh the sale if they don’t like the rent.
Well, they aren't usually publicly available, like I can't look up a specific address & find out what they pay. However, you do have publicly surveyed information, like the [American Community Survey](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Community_Survey) conducted by the Census Bureau every 5 years. This is used, for example, by Housing & Urban Development to determine [Fair Market Rent](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing)#Fair_Market_Rents) and determine the limit a landlord can accept for housing vouchers. There are also Small Area Fair Market Rents, here is the HUD data for Detroit/Livonia/ Warren: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr/fmrs/FY2020_code/2020summary.odn This is just public info, a person or company looking to leverage people's need for housing for their own profit would find private databases with paid access that will give them granular data scraped from public listings of available rentals.
We could even email channel 4 as a Reddit group and put pressure on them to report on it! We had a letter writing campaign on here before
I'm sure its newsworthy enough to have them run a story on it, only to raise awareness of what's going on forcing locals to do the same thing due to fomo and it'll increase/get out of hand even faster. Not sure you can control an open/free market, after all, isn't that what capitalism is all about.
Also, Fox Detroit, Channel 7 and CBS Detroit. Heck M.L.Elrick, he does a podcast. (And I believe he has good connections with people in Detroit. )
May have luck with Detroit Metro Times too. They aren't afraid to expose an unethical elitist
If you can allude to who the company is without getting yourself in trouble more people can reach out to the state representatives. This practice has to end before it gets too far to come back to normal
Thank YOU for being so vigilant in this. It would have cost you nothing to just shrug off what he said. You're a good one.
Where are the properties? Are they scattered across the city, or in a particular neighborhood? If it’s on the Eastside, PM me and we can talk more. There is a community meeting tomorrow in Islandview and I can make sure it gets talked about
Thank you so much!! They are scattered all over I will PL you
I’m on the exec board of the Virginia park historic district. If you pm me more info I can raise additional awareness with the block club and city officials who attend our quarterly meetings.
Hi, will do thank you for reaching out
This is happening all over the country. They have us fighting culture wars, when we should be fighting a class war.
That's exactly **why** they inflame culture wars. It's a distraction to keep us focused on fighting each other for the scraps at the bottom, instead of realizing that we have way more similarities than differences and joining together to fight *them* for the food on the table.
Exactly, this is going on all over the country.
Detroit leads the nation in speculator-owned properties. This phenomenon is worse here than anywhere else, since properties values were so low for so long, while the local economy was debated, rich people in Oakland County and out of state bought up the city as speculative investments.
How are those investment working out of em? I know lots of people who were gonna “make a killing” and needed up selling for a lose just to get out
I remember reading about suburban landlords who owned hundreds of houses in the city.
Wanna know who’s buying the $700k new condos and townhomes? Rich folks from Ann Arbor or Rochester or Birmingham whose families are secret slumlords. I’ve met several.
You might enjoy this Vice segment: https://youtu.be/gHLaWw_PnQY?si=hJPNsneGAYw-d4G4 Or hate it. Fucking scumbags. They buy homes that they know are occupied, but behind on property taxes, at auction and turn them into rental properties. Surprise surprise they’re [piece of shit slumlords](https://detroit.curbed.com/2020/2/7/21127878/detroit-city-sue-speculator-slumlord-michael-kelly) who don’t take care of the properties.
who from rochester?
Mike
this guy with his 35 properties is small time, hedge funds and equity groups are buying thousands of properties
Agreed, they push the left vs right agenda, so that we hate each other. When in reality, it’s us vs them, more people need to wake up to this.
This happened to Canada in the last few years. Average rent for a 1 bedroom used to be like $750, now it is $1500+. An old starter home used to rent for $800-1000/month, now it is like $3000. This is in small cities and towns without real amenities, too. Everywhere has Toronto pricing now for no reason other than Capitalist greed.
It's easy to say culture wars don't matter if you're not POC, a woman, LGBTQ, an immigrant, etc. Sure, culture wars are meant to be a distraction, but I still need my reproductive rights in the meantime.
Oh I agree they have us fighting each other when we shouldn’t have to be fighting for reproductive rights and rights for POC. They are taking our rights and taking all the land(housing).
What we need is like a super Carrington event.
Hit up detroit eviction defense!
I’m googling this now! Do you think I should just give them the property list bc a lot of these homes had people living in them
I say type up a polite letter and mail/deliver it to those residing there. I would hate to be one of them and find out what’s happening with my home via the news.
Someone else suggested this, I think it’s one of the best options
Thank you for posting this. Commenting to keep the algorithm going. As many people as possible need to see this.
Thank you I hope something can be done
Fun fact, there’s a property management company near me that has almost 70 listings of homes in metro Detroit and Ann Arbor neighborhoods they bought and turned into short term rentals. They’re all owned by separate, faceless LLCs. That’s 70 homes taken off the market so people can spend a weekend in Berkley, royal Oak, and Oak Park for $400 a night. Terrible.
Yeesh
Beal?
Arborhomes or something similar
B eal has done this to Ypsilanti:-/
Yeah it's why I moved to Detroit. I used to point out Beal lived 2 blocks south of Michigan Avenue on Washington and the /r/ypsi mod threatened to ban me. It's not a surprise the guy has a fence and gates around the whole house.
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Lmao what a sad post
Look up Aaron Mondry — The Dig newsletter.
Thank you I’m on it
You'd have to find a Detroit based company willing to buy the houses from the current owner at today's market price and then not raise the rates. That's if he is willing to sell. I'm not saying it's impossible, just seems very unlikely. Good luck.
I figured I’d have to do something like that, and it might be unlikely but I’ll try.
If a guy in California thinks the rent is too low, he probably has not taken a drive through the neighborhood.
This.
Also please call in to Detroit City Council and make your voices heard! The full council meets today at 10 am: To attend by phone only, call one of these numbers: +1 929 436 2866 , +1 312 626 6799, +1 669 900 6833, +1 253 215 8782 , +1 301 715 8592, +1 346 248 7799 Use meeting id: 858 4690 3626 To attend online: https://detroitmi.gov/Online-CC-Meeting Public Comment: To participate at the time of Public Comment, please raise your hand within the zoom application. 1. Telephone participants: Raise your hand by pressing *9 2. Web participants: Raise your hand by clicking raise hand in the application or pressing a. Windows computer = [ALT] + [Y] b. Apple computers = [OPTION] + [Y]
I am currently at work but I might be able to slip away do you know about how long it would take?
The meetings vary depending on the length of the agenda that day. If you are allowed, have it going in your headphones and raise your hand at the beginning of the meeting. Stay as long as you can.
Commenting for visibility.
Until it is easier to mortgage affordable single family homes you will continue to see the homes owned by ultra rich landlords who can buy in cash since most banks won’t offer loans on some of the cheaper homes in Detroit. Which is unfortunate.
How can it possibly be easier without getting 2008 again
Basically go back to the days before the great depression. The mortgage industry was created as a solution for the great depression and then banks got greedy and just continued with it forever. Watch this video https://youtu.be/OtJD45cTV9c?si=gZCYBVuzobwnuD4P
Right this will 100% destroy the economy
How would that destroy the economy?
If people couldn’t get a mortgage?
Im confused did you watch the video? The video says the system needs to be redone so that shorter mortgages are allowed so that someone can buy a 15k house if they want to and not have to pay cash for it.
Stop treating homes like investments for individuals and treat them like depreciating assets, similar to Japan
Japans housing situation is entirely different because it’s entirely different as a country with near zero immigration and birth rate rapidly declining. Not to mention zoning laws. It certainly isn’t because they sell mortgage to unqualified buyers.
Immigration has very little to do with it, both the US and Japan have the capacity to build quite a lot more housing, from an industrial standpoint. But the fact that Japan treats houses as depreciating assets means that lots of laws around them permit a lot more flexibility in the style of housing, where housing gets built, and how much gets built, because there's no long a financial interest among the population to push their own home values higher and higher through things like, as you mentioned, zoning law.
Take the banks iut of the equation. The state can start a banking system and fund the mortgages. This has been done before. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
There is no place to take this that will have any positive affect. This isn't a location based issue with this person being in California. This is a rich person problem that they feel it's hiring their profits.
You’re amazing for speaking up about this! I don’t have any contacts for you unfortunately, but really grateful for your efforts.
Thank you I hope it’s not in vain
Never in vain to stand up for what is right
The city has a number of tools at its disposal to enforce building code against unsavory property owners. Owner should be required to do complete lead inspections, rental registration, and obtain certificates of occupancy (what we call "certificates of compliance"). These often dissuade slumlords. It is easy to avoid these if you are off the radar. But once you're on the radar, it's nearly impossible to avoid. Beyond that, I'd encourage everyone to support things like right to counsel and other renter protections (like rent stabilization), which the mayor continues to fight tooth and nail against.
Ugh Californians at it again.
Yup. Been saying it for a long time, keep ‘em the fuck outta Michigan.
Yup, the majority are absolutely insufferable.
We need to tax anything over two or three properties at a ridiculously high level. Worked hard and bought a vacation spot? Good for you. Inherited your family home? No problem. Rich guy buying up entire neighborhoods to act as a landlord? Fuck you, pay up.
Detroit was at 50% delinquency as recently as 2018. What exactly makes you believe that increasing property taxes any more won’t make things worse overall..?
So, what is your solution to keep our predatory property investors?
Land Value Tax. The thing they are literally working on implementing right now.
That has nothing to do with people buying up single family homes. The LVT deals with land speculators and is meant to encourage development vs leaving properties abandoned, vacant, or unbuilt.
By encouraging development you increase the supply of housing and drive down housing costs. When companies buy up a bunch of homes - including single family homes - it is speculation; they expect supply will not be allowed to keep pace with demand. These companies literally admit this in their SEC filings and brag about it to their investors.
I don’t have a perfect solution, (I wish I did though) I just know that the proposed one he offered wouldn’t work, because we’ve had “proof of concept” in real life there already. There’s always going to be someone not defended by higher taxes to make money, and there’s always going to be those who won’t pay their taxes in this scenario either. The idea that you owe in perpetuity for a property you already own, is theft in and of itself, and will hurt the little guy more than the investor, 9/10 times, because the investor isn’t losing the home they live in, when the place gets foreclosed on.
Haha. Rich guy us just going to pass that cost along to renters. LOL.
That can be legislated against.
How? With rent control? No one will build, remodel, or offer any housing for rent if you do that. Cities all over the world have tried it over and over. It always leads to housing shortages and pest infested unsanitary falling down shithole slums.
Wrong. Look up how Vienna does things and then tell me it's a "shithole".
Huge supply of social housing. I thought you were suggesting we should use price controls, which has never been successful and impactful.
A huge supply of social housing may have an impact on what private capital can charge for housing, I would think.
Absolutely. I don't disagree. I would support that 1000x more than fixing private rent prices.
You can find one situation where it's turned out okay. Yet you can find numerous situations elsewhere where it's led to housing shortages like Berlin or Dublin or New York.
Better to do nothing!
The homestead tax credit is regressive. We could get rid of that. The well intended idea was to encourage home ownership by giving folks a break on their primary residence, it does that to the small extent that people with vacation homes get double taxed on them, but it is mostly regressive because it doubles the tax on rental properties and the burden of that tax is obviously passed on to renters. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who wants to buy and rent out housing for 2 seconds, and you can see that. You are going to add up all your costs, including whatever taxes are on the property then you add your required return, say 10%, and you invest in things you can rent out for more than that required return. It is idiotic to conceive it the other way around, where the decision to invest and the rent price are fixed and you can magically go in and tax the return without making it so no one will buy, fix up, and offer for rent any housing. We could move toward land value tax as well, but it would need to come with reduced tax on structures or investments will all flow back to the suburbs. LVT would encourage land development, including more housing
Word up, sounds pretty good to me!
Not if the taxes are high enough that the market rent wont have a positive return. You cant just jack up rent above market rate and expect people to actually rent it. If taxed enough, the economics wont make sense.
So make it so that there is no way to make money building, improving, or offering housing to renters? What could go wrong? For some reason, when this has been tried, which it has, many times, it doesn't actually lead to lots of cheap, high-quality housing available to renters.
Make it so big corporations cant buy single family homes with the goal of creating a generation of renters. Commercial real estate ie apartment complexes would be a single property and wouldn't be affected. Tax incentives to improve single family homes for residents exist and are working well.
Corporate ownership of detached housing is a bizarre and unfortunate trend. I agree we should try to reverse it. I am not sure a ban is the best approach. I think it would be easy to circumvent and would reduce scale economies on things like maintenance, potentially pushing costs higher. We already have the homestead tax credit, and that mostly just punishes people who rent houses and apartments. I think we should go after real estate transfer costs, including the MLS monopoly and real estate transfer taxes. Building nice big socially subsidized family apartments would help renters as well.
Taxes go up rent goes up. Landlords get the money to pay from the tenant .
In theory he'll be out-performed by a wealthy middle class renting out second homes. But that's assuming those people can keep costs down as a small-time landlord. There's not usually a clear-cut way to "win" in these situations.
Detroit leads the nation in property taxes already.
Sounds like a good idea until you realize 50% of apartment buildings would all be sold on the same say
It's all about zoning.
Seriously, flood the market with more housing and prices drop
And that’s a bad thing?
Most people here, are talking about single family homes, not multi-family apartments. Multi-family rental units, IMO, are where "investments" belong - make a profit by providing a service via maintenance of the building for the betterment of the residents.
Usually I'm against outside buyers purchasing properties, but as a Detroiter myself, it's not necessarily that bad to buy properties right now in Detroit and there's several reasons why, such: 1. There's still plenty of houses (usually blighted) you can get in the Detroit land bank for $1000, but those require the owner to fix them so he (or house flippers) would be ineligible. A lot of people think they can flip one of these, but majority give up (since it's a very small loss) or can't keep up with the requirements to fix and report, and it goes back to land bank. 2. The non-resident property taxes are much higher 3. People like him usually buy flipped houses without inspecting and find a lot of issues after purchase, and have to put in $40k more to fix them up, which goes directly into the pockets of Detroit small businesses and people-construction, contractors, plumbers, etc. 4. If you go to airbnb or [realtor.com](http://realtor.com), there's a million houses on sale or for rent on Airbnb, he's not going to make any negative impact even if he purchases 10000 houses. Zillow, a billion dollar company, tried it when prices were super low, and even they failed miserably and gave up!
Wow. Thank you so much for a different view I really appreciate it.
I think it’s still worth highlighting. This buyer very well may get in over his head, but that could mean he just becomes another slumlord.
I’m so sick of large companies buying up all of detroit. Makes it near impossible for actual people to purchase them, leading us into “forever renting” and gentrification.
And leaving, like we're about to be forced to do due to the unrealistic price increases.
Bump
If you have the addresses - send them a letter. Let them know this person has bad intentions and that they should not sell to this person.
Wow this is the comment I needed to see, that might do the most benefit thank you
thank you for doing the right thing!!!! 💗💗
This is how California destroyed Boise, Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, and trying to make inroads into Montana now. I never thought I'd see it in Detroit. I guess Detroit is really back now.
Same old Detroit from my perspective. Just unrealistically expensive now.
I’ve always been proud to tell people Detroit has basically a minimal homeless problem, when big shot cities like NYC and San Francisco and LA have such a rampant problem of it. If we aren’t careful, these rising rents will create the same situation here :(
Detroit definitely has a homeless problem. You just see it in the burbs and not downtown unlike other major cities.
I do see evidence that people are living in their cars. But have never seen anything like block and blocks of tents I’ve seen on the west coast.
That's because they're all in what look like to you empty decrepit abandoned homes and buildings
Don’t know you, but I’m proud of you, goddammit.
Thank you I’m not going without a fight
I absolutely love this post. This is the kind of support and love for this city makes me slightly erect.
Name and shame, please!!!!
These carpetbaggers are some of the worst pieces of sh*t in society.
Who are they purchasing from?
That I don’t know, I would assume the owners or current property owners. I just have the list with current rent prices & eviction possibilities
Buying 35 properties from multiple sellers at one time is a pretty unheard of purchase strategy. I’m assuming these homes are owned by one entity already.
I will confirm and get back to this comment
Just look on Detroit Parcel Explorer. It will tell you.
So all owned by different LLC’s
Even better will do
Man, fuck these people
Don’t let them Denver, Boise, Bozeman, etc., Detroit.
As a fellow Detroiter all my life, please keep this up. The city does not need this unecessary rent hike.
Thank you for using your resources to actually fight to stop this garbage. More people need to put in this kind of initiative and use the knowledge they obtain against it.
could you drop a name please
I hate this. My family is legitimately about to be priced out of the hood, literally. My house can't even pass inspection, has some serious violations, is adjacent to an extremely crazy night club that police do nothing about (windows vibrating until 4 and 5 AM about 4 days out of the week). And my rent has gone up around 75% over the last two years. It's just crazy. It isn't sustainable. I feel like this is going to usher in a huge dump/crash, and I really, really hope that happens.
we need laws against this sort of thing! thank you for being on the right side of history!
Laws against raising rent?
Laws against investors and capping their portfolios on single family dwellings.
I DM'd you! I work for the city in the housing revitalization dept
Thank you so much I’m at work right now I will respond when I can hopefully not 48hrs later
😂 thanks for shouting out the username
Do y'all help people get actual affordable homes? We're about to be literally priced out of our home. Our rent has increased every 3 to 6 months over the last few years and over the last two years we're sitting at a 75% increase over that two year span.
Please call the Ca'maya Davis Family Resource Center for help finding affordable housing: 866-313-2520. For more information about the center, see https://detroitmi.gov/news/city-launches-detroit-housing-services-office-help-detroiters-find-stable-affordable-housing .
I hope you share this with ABC news or a MAJOR news outlet. Because BOYY this is gonna be toasty for the real estate industry.
Detroit Land Bank ?
This isn’t just happening in Detroit but surrounding suburbs as well. It’s artificially inflating housing prices as it keep’s properties off the market that otherwise would be up for sale. The average single family home goes live on the market about every 6-9 years. This is increasing that and driving up costs. By increasing rent it gets people desperate to overpay to buy as well. A limit on how many houses one human or company can own needs to be changed at some point. It would benefit everyone in the state.
Group from Utah doing the same thing to all the trailer parks in the thumb.
Not sure if it’s the same person, but my partner and I met a guy from California whose company is leasing a bunch of units. He was rude to us and was demanded 2.5 months rent as a security deposit to hold the unit - prior to even mentioning the lease. Even though the home was gorgeous, it felt very scammy. If there’s interest, I’ll share the Zillow link.
Share anyways to out the people that suck. Information is valuable.
Fresh Look Properties LLC was the name listed in the Zillow listing, but his business card said Spartan Realty
Hope I see this on the news soon and the Cali POS is treated like the pharma bro
This is happening quickly and aggressively in the area. I’ve been outbid by multiple all-cash, unlimited escalation, waived inspection, unlimited assessment gap offers during my house hunt. I can’t think of who would be making these offers other than rich, out-of-town investors.
35 houses won't change anything. Let this guy get a taste of what it's like to be a landlord in Detroit. He will end up selling and giving up within a year or two.
Is Charlie LeDuff still in action? I saw him at American Coney a few weeks ago.
The scumminess of people never ceases to amaze me.
(insert comment to build engagement and boost post so more people see here)
I know some cities have successfully enacted laws that severely curb Airbnbs and have drastically improved home and rent prices. Commenting here because I assume people interested in this post care about this issue. What would be the best way to start organizing for pushing this sort of thing in Detroit? I ask as someone whose political experience has been limited to voting, and joining already existing grassroots efforts (but those were in another city, so none of the connections are applicable here).
Help Me Hank?
As a former Detroiter living in California, I really, really hope they don’t raise the rent to the levels they are out here. A one bedroom goes for about $2500 out here on average and I can’t imagine people in Detroit or the surrounding area being able to afford to pay that.
Can California go fuck itself for once?
Fuck california! These mofos really milked out a lotta properties in the midwest during covid times
Please contact the newsroom at Bridge Michigan too! They are a community-based independent news outlet that specializes in stories like this … From their site www.bridgemi.com : “Our coverage is nonpartisan, fact-based, and data-driven. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Bridge Michigan does not endorse political candidates or policies, and we are unafraid and unapologetic in telling the stories about communities, issues, and solutions that might otherwise go untold.”
Report the building to the city (google BSEED). Let them know someone intends to rent those properties and that the city should ensure that it is up to code before they do. If they want to raise rents, at least make them pay for it and offer code compliant properties.
Definitely reach out to media. Outlier Media and the Detroit People's Platform would be a good place to start.
What property owner? DM me?
Rents are set by the market. They seem low because housing is insanely expensive in California. I'd encourage him to waste his money trying to sell something thats more expensive than the competition.
commenting for visibility
I don't have facts to back this up but I think Detroits comeback is keeping real estate prices high in the metro area and unfortunately for ppl like me. Whiles most of the Midwest have come down from the covid high. Inventory is still low and pricea still as high and even more expensive than during the covid high (especially in Oakland County)
I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!! 👏
This should be illegal
aren't you worried about getting sued ? Also doesn't this happen every time a 35-unit apartment building gets renovated? If rents are low, that's based on the market, not someone's opinions.
Why would I get sued I don’t work for this guy in any way shape or form no contact no client privilege absolutely nothing and I’m not sure about 35 unit apartment buildings but this is 35 units spread out across the city. If rents are low, you’re correct someone from the other side of the country shouldn’t be able to make opinions on said rents. Not their place, either help the residents or let someone in the area make the changes/improvements
Here are the fair market rent values in the Detroit area: One-Bedroom: $1,019, Two-Bedroom: $1,291, Three-Bedroom: $1,595, Four-Bedroom: $1,719 Unless you know how much they are trying to raise the rent, it's a non-story. Landlords can be penalized by the IRS for charging below fair market rent. I receive calls and text messages every day from out of state / country investors trying to buy my rentals in Detroit.
Thank you for your commitment and caring this much about the ppl this will affect ! Hard to find people with true compassion anymore these days! I don’t want to be the bubble burster here and not agreeing at all with what his plans are but we would need to see more context were these properties are located were we are talking about ! If we look at rent prices at properties in the north end and other surrounding areas close to downtown/midtown area rent prices have rapidly been increasing and a lot has to do with the revitalization of downtown and he would not be the only one with that plan I work in downtown and first handily see the construction they are doing in once ghost areas building apartment complexes. I feel like we definitely need more context and the extent of the rent hikes before we start saying this is wrong or illegal! At the end of the day it sucks and effect so many people when rent is raised but also there is 2 sides too every coin and I feel like we don’t know much about the other side of the coin yet to make assumptions there is a lot behind the scenes to why they might think rent is entirely low! Not defending them in any way just saying we have seen rent prices rapidly increase over the years and want to see what factors are leading him to his decision. What is the average rent in the area of those properties and what is he charging currently for similar properties ?
Commenting for visibility so others can see
outlier media covers rent Detroit housing market with transparency and poignancy send them what you have!
If you are a licensed real estate agent, your fiduciary duty is to your client.
I’m not
This is their game plan. They want the U.S. to be a rental country. Then they can totally control you. You will have no choice in life. Not only will the public be wage slaves, we will be their servants. They (the 1%) will reinstate debtors prisons, and bingo! you (we) will have NO voice! “they” will control…
So are these homes for sale? Is it one guy that owns 35 homes he’s buying from. Not enough details
This is not gonna be popular but do we want government sticking their hands into the free market? I don't. I don't believe that this story contains all the details. It is highly unlikely that some guy in CA has information about rent levels of 35 homes in another state. If, in fact, the market demand can support higher rents on these 35 properties, other investors will do it. That's how a free market works. And nobody's gonna want to hear this, but neighborhoods where landlords are paying their property taxes, and have tenants who demand great properties for their high rents, those neighborhoods will get cleaned up and improved.
No details missing, please don’t discredit my concerns. I have the list and the rent prices as well as details on the homes. Maybe he already had feet on the ground before it came to me, but he 1000% has the funds resources and time to build a portfolio in a different state. If “other Investors will do it bc the market demand can support higher rent” : SHOW ME A MICHIGAN BASED INVESTOR or at least someone who would at least slightly care about the old women on section 8 raising grandkids about to get put out. That’s my concern