House prices vs taxes and zoning.
This last month a few of us have been looking for places to restart carreers and start new buisinesses.
As we looked around we checked e-bay, you know, the land for sale adds, where you can buy a cave or a town or patch of desert.... we found what looked like the home run! Homes in Flint Michigan for $1 each! and a LOT of homes for less than 10 grand.! In town, with utilities and streets, and water, and sewers, and EVERYTHING! WOW!!! Go east old man, go east!
Of course, the housing stock is worn. A cheap home needs a few dollars of repair, $10,000, or more. the up side is many are wonderfull Craftsman style homes. Then the yards are small, but many have vacant lots or similar cheap homes next door or in the in the neighborhood - some opportunity for rationalization and rearrangement of property lines and lot sizes. The possibilities of NICE homes for reasonable prices seemed to be present. the possibility for small buisiness locations, "home occupations" or "garage shops" seemed to be present as well.
The market for commercial property seems to be a bit low as well. Seemed to be that a fellow could build or renovate a nice location for a reasonable price. Close to supplies and markets, close to large populations.
With modern equipment a guy - or couple dozen, can make a living with a small shop, service, information, retail, or distribution buisiness. Many specialty manufacturures operate out of suburban locations. Hey and guess what, If they can walk to work - heaven!!!
Then we noticed the taxes.
The taxes on the one dollar house in Flint were $4,500 a year! Are they this high? I hope this was wrong. It would be a real shame. That is as much as the payment on $40,000 of a mortgage payment with taxes and insurance in parts of Arizona.
- Revised -we have found a more reputable listing, taxes were in line with what they should be.- I hope these are right.
Then we looked into zoning, putting in a backyard shop or remodeling a closed factory building, and parking a pickup or our worktruck at the house. We were blown away. we have seen planned gated comunities with fewer restrictions. -Again, did we just hit the wrong town or area?
And this is a place running for "next ghost town in america"?
hmmm Folks, if you are with the Michigan State Government, You have some wonderfull oportunities. you have a great heritage and the potential for a bright future. But you also seem to have some real problems, and it isn't with Washington, it isn't with unions.. It is right at home. When you are losing population, losing jobs, look at the taxes, look at your zoning, look at building regs. Look at what it costs to set up a small buisiness and make it run.
Many of the zoning and building restrictions are logical - if it were 1955, or property had value, or if you are dealing with large companies. It isn't logical to restrict parking, home occupations, and mixed use in the present or future circumstance. It isn't logical to "protect property values" at the expense of economic activity when the lack of economic activity itself destroys property value.
Zoning has been getting more restrictive across america, with prosperity came restrictions, we could maybe afford some of them. You have the opportunity to lead the nation in rolling some back.
Your cities have all of the locational advantages that should lead to thriving small and medium, buisinesses. And thriving vibrant retail activity to support them and the community. However your laws seem to be geared to bedroom comunities for large plants.
If the costs supported by your taxes are really that high, time to cut back. Start at the top. It is possible to run a good modern city at less than the tax rate that seems to be listed on some of these properties.
You folks in LOCAL government, the reason your city is dying could be you.
30 minutes of looking convinced us we didn't want to buy the $1 house: we didn't think we could afford it. But it has got our interest!
Last edited by wesdavidson; 3/18/2009 at 03:02 PM.
Reason: updated info
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