Category: Detroit Real Estate Investing

I attended the monthly Morningside community meeting last night. It’s the first in-person one I’ve been to.

Detroit’s Mayor, Mike Duggan, showed up to listen to and address concerns from the community. I was surprised he made the time, but apparently he tries to make most of the community meetings throughout the city. Impressive.

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I was chatting with my friend Paul the other day, trying to drive home a point. We have a lot of back-and-forth discussions because we see just about everything differently. Our friendship works though because we’re both open minded enough to consider one another’s opinion.

I digress.

Something I’ve been getting him to come around on over the last two years is Detroit’s comeback. I dabble in angel investing which is a fancy term for saying I kiss small chunks of money goodbye into small private companies. Every couple months I receive an update from these companies that details their growth and progress.

I was reading one the other day, and their last bullet point said,

“We’ve received a $20M commitment from a private equity growth fund.”

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It’s been nearly a month since I’ve written a post.

I hate that.

My goal is to write daily, not for anyone but simply for myself.

It helps me think, keep track of what’s important, and perhaps most of all gives me a window into how I got myself into mistakes.

A lack of writing does not mean a lack of progress though. We’ve been busy.

The Courtship Revival demolition is in full swing. I’ve put in about 21 hours of solo work, and it’s… getting there. I took down the first section of ceiling today, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be, largely because I could attack it from above.

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My buddy Paul and I have been kicking around the idea of working together on a real estate project for quite awhile now, and we’ve been actively looking for something with the right potential for the last couple months. That’s when two quadraplexes caught our eye on the MLS that are owned by the city of Detroit.

And let’s be clear… they shouldn’t have caught our eye.

These things are ugly, both inside and out. The exterior brick on each side and backs of the buildings has been stripped, leaving only the front façade intact. That’s enough to scare 99.9% of people off.

Apparently we are the 0.1%.

After walking the block a couple times and getting into one of the quads, we decided to put in an offer. But with one caveat: we didn’t just want to buy the two quads, we wanted to buy the entire block.

You see, the block is rough. It’s comprised of 28 parcels (18 structures and 10 vacant lots) with 26 of them owned by the city. Of the two structures that are privately owned, one is CLEARLY running drugs. The other seems to be in decent condition and occupied.

Almost all of the structures are missing their exterior brick like the quads. Why? Apparently drug addicts used to chisel out bricks, bring them to the local brickyard, and sell them for $0.10 each when Detroit was really at its low point. There’s a very good chance that this activity destroyed the potential for these buildings to ever be rehabilitated.

But Paul and I are willing to take a gamble. I contacted the listing agent, had a very nice chat with her, and was told to write a proposals.

A proposal? Umm… ok.

So I did. I outlined exactly what we wanted to do, why we were fit to do it, and what challenges we were going to face. I argued why the city should sell us the entire block rather than just the two properties that were listed, even though the rest of the block wasn’t currently up for sale.

Paul was convinced they’d demand to see proof of funds, at best. I was convinced we didn’t have a shot in hell at the entire block but they’d likely offer the quads that were listed on the MLS.

It took weeks before we heard back. I was shocked last Friday when the agent called me and said the city “countered” our $17,000 offer at $30,000.

They were onboard with selling us everything.

So now it’s real, and we have to really figure out how to proceed. It seems Paul and I are both onboard to give this a shot, but we’re going to go walk the block again tomorrow, get into as many buildings as possible, and likely present a counter offer this week.

I’ve been wanting to level up a bit, and this seems like a fantastic opportunity to do that.

Is it insane? Absolutely. But I’ve found it’s always the ideas that seem a bit (or a lot) crazy that are the most rewarding.

I wish I could exclaim, “DEMO DAY!!!!” with the connotation that we’re rocking and will be done quickly. But that’s not the case.

I got started knocking down plaster and tearing out lath yesterday on our latest buy, Courtship Revival. It was just me working solo, and it’s going to take a long time just to get it down to the studs. That’s ok, the whole idea with this one is to learn more, not just about different skills and trades, but about the time it takes to do things, costs, etc.

Here are some photos of the room I got started in:

I watched several YouTube videos on best practices when it comes to removing plaster and lath. They were helpful, but I’m honing my own process as I work. I’ve found that using the side of a hammer to whack the lath loose is pretty effective (I’ll do a video at some point). Much of it will simply start falling off the wall.

Today I’ll be taking a hand sledgehammer to see if that improves efficiency. I’m also thinking about how to tackle the ceilings. Duct taping a sledge hammer to a broom handle and hitting it with that may work well.

Regardless, there’s a lot to do here. Between the two units there’s something like 2,300+ square feet.

It’s going to be a process!

On Saturday afternoon I attended a workshop for installing exterior doors and windows at the Detroit Training Center. Given Courtship Revival has no windows, I figured I could save a ton of money by learning how to install them myself.

The facility itself is impressive. They have a number of stations setup for masonry, hardwood floors, tiling, and a bunch of rough carpentry for doing things like doors, windows, siding, etc.

Overall, the course was decent. It was nice to see someone, in person, install a door from measurement, framing, and final adjustments. It gave me new appreciation for how time consuming installing a door actually is. Doing it took most of the 3-hour long class, granted the instructor was interrupted with questions quite a bit.

That said, I wasn’t super blown away. I wish we’d spent more time on windows, even though they share many similarities. While our instructor seemed pretty knowledgeable it was clear he wasn’t an expert in doors and windows. There was a question about security doors and he admitted he had zero experience with them and was unable to answer it. So I’m sure the quality of the course is heavily dependent on the instructor.

The course was $70, and you get slight discounts for buying multiple course credits at once. I’m still on the fence in terms of whether or not it was worth it, but I’m willing to take another before making a final decision.

I do firmly believe Detroit’s future is real estate and all things related (trades), so I love seeing things like DCI. I hope they realize the opportunity they have and continue investing in the trades.

On my way out, there was a film crew with a huge camera attached to a boom on the front of a car. The crew was loitering about. They must have been filming No Sudden Move.