Detroit Foreclosure Investors

This recent Reuters article exemplifies several attractions and pitfalls of investing in foreclosed properties in Detroit.

Take this for example

Wallace, 27, said he did not want to leave his fiancee and two children with a mortgage before shipping out to Iraq later this year.

“I still have student loans and I’m trying to be responsible. I don’t want to leave debt,” he said.

Wallace waited for the auction to roll around to Detroit’s Boston-Edison district, a once stately area that was home to boxing legend Joe Louis and Motown founder Berry Gordy.

But he was quickly outbid. An unidentified investor at the front of the room who had scooped up several dozen properties took the home Wallace wanted for about $15,000.

“Why am I competing against a bank?” he said later. “It would be common sense to have a separate process for people who want to move back to the city or it’s going to stay empty.”

As an investor, note

1. there are people who want to live in the city
2. you can’t just buy and hold and SIT in the real estate market in Detroit, You have to buy with a plan. Otherwise, you don’t have an investment, you have a liability.

Read the rest of the article here.