How many "yuppies" have actually moved to Detroit the past couple of years?

[drjeff]

Demand != subsidies to build something != influx of yuppies.

Who do you think is occupying all the rental units in downtown, including many that have opened up in the past 2 years? Occupancy is near 100%. Are these all poor black people paying the highest rents in the city? Your criticism doesn't pass the smell test either.

[e.p.3]

Almost 40 posts in and no data. Just a bunch of excuses. With all due respect, I don't need to read summaries of every Freep Press or Detroit News hype piece, I asked for some real data.

Are you guys really suggesting that whatever data exists is wrong because there are thousands of college-educated professionals committing insurance fraud and risking misdemeanor infractions for failing to accurately represent address on their DL?

[313WX]

Are you guys really suggesting that whatever data exists is wrong because there are thousands of college-educated professionals committing insurance fraud and risking misdemeanor infractions for failing to accurately represent address on their DL?

Is that too hard for you to believe?

[e.p.3]

Is that too hard for you to believe?

Yes. Because it's complete BS. Unless you're all suggesting that even college educated professionals succumb to the pressures of the criminal ethos in Detroit. Furthermore, census data is door to door. Why would where you insure you car matter? Why would what's on your driver's license matter? You get a mortgage, a lease, utilities, etc. that could also be used to gather this data, accurately, and relatively easily.

I'm not a developer. If the city is booming, the developers could easily access what the REAL gains are and those gains would be published...somewhere...anywhere. You all don't find it odd this data doesn't exist? Without data, these neighborhoods are only booming in your minds. That's called marketing.

[dtowncitylover]

Yes. Because it's complete BS. Unless you're all suggesting that even college educated professionals succumb to the pressures of the criminal ethos in Detroit. Furthermore, census data is door to door. Why would where you insure you car matter? Why would what's on your driver's license matter? You get a mortgage, a lease, utilities, etc. that could be used to gather this data, accurately.

I'm not a developer. If the city is booming, the developers could easily access what the REAL gains are and those gains would be published...somewhere...anywhere. You all don't find it odd this data doesn't exist? Without data, these neighborhoods are only booming in your minds. That's called marketing.

I'm not sure any of us are data people. Go ask Data Driven Detroit.

I know you're looking for data that's trying to tell you that Midtown-Downtown aren't growing and people aren't moving there but sorry that data doesn't exist either.

[313WX]

Why would where you insure you car matter?

Why pay $500 per month to insure your car with a Detroit when you can pay ~$200 per month [[and save money) to insure your car with a suburban address?

Why would what's on your driver's license matter?

Because whatever location your car is registered at is how the insurance companies determine where to set your insurance premiums.

You get a mortgage, a lease, utilities, etc. that could be used to gather this data, accurately.

Except for the fact that people can have multiple properties with leases and mortgages and utilities in multiple locations. It is up to those people to determine where they want their primary residence to be.

[e.p.3]

Why pay $500 per month to insure your car with a Detroit when you can pay ~$200 per month [[and save money) to insure your car with a suburban address?



Because whatever location your car is registered at is how the insurance companies determine where to set your insurance premiums.



Except for the fact that people can have multiple properties with leases and mortgages and utilities in multiple locations. It is up to those people to determine where they want their primary residence to be. [/COLOR]

Thousands of unreported Detroit residents are college-educated people committing misdemeanors and felonies to live in Detroit, while also running the risk of being denied insurance claims on their biggest assets [[housing, car), and refuse to fill out census data. Got it.

[313WX]

Thousands of unreported Detroit residents are college-educated people committing misdemeanors and felonies to live in Detroit, while also running the risk of being denied insurance claims on their biggest assets [[housing, car), and refuse to fill out census data. Got it.

No, you still don't get it.

And given that you're still being either intentionally difficult or legitimately clueless right now despite all of the information placed before you, you'll never get it.

[jhnbonham]

Is that too hard for you to believe?

313WX is completely correct. Why is that hard to believe, considering people move to cities in different states without ever updating their driver's license, let alone moving within the same state?

I know the originator of this thread is requesting hard data, but what he wants may simply not exist. I suggest he simply go spend a couple of days in these areas in question to see himself, even try to rent an apartment in the area.

Again with the bar set at census numbers, and renters never move without changing their address, even this may not suffice.

[e.p.3]

313WX is completely correct. Why is that hard to believe, considering people move to cities in different states without ever updating their driver's license, let alone moving within the same state?

I know the originator of this thread is requesting hard data, but what he wants may simply not exist. I suggest he simply go spend a couple of days in these areas in question to see himself, even try to rent an apartment in the area.

Again with the bar set at census numbers, and renters never move without changing their address, even this may not suffice.

So you're a developer and you want financing for a building. You tell the finance guys "trust me, it's booming there" and that gets you $50M in financing? Are you all really that naive?

[jhnbonham]

So you're a developer and you want financing for a building. You tell the finance guys "trust me, it's booming there" and that gets you $50M in financing? Are you all really that naive?

So you're a developer and want financing for a building. You tell the finance guys the rental rate in this area is $X.XX/sq ft with an occupancy rate of XX%. The cost of building this project is expected to be $XXX,XXX, with XX units ranging from XXX-X,XXX sq ft, etc etc. You have pages and pages of documentation to support this having spent X amount of money in planning and preparation. Are you really that naive?

Or are you upset that none of the posters on this forum are developers in the area which have spent their time and money to prepare this for you?

[e.p.3]

So you're a developer and want financing for a building. You tell the finance guys the rental rate in this area is $X.XX/sq ft with an occupancy rate of XX%. The cost of building this project is expected to be $XXX,XXX, with XX units ranging from XXX-X,XXX sq ft, etc etc. You have pages and pages of documentation to support this having spent X amount of money in planning and preparation. Are you really that naive?

Or are you upset that none of the posters on this forum are developers in the area which have spent their time and money to prepare this for you?

Project viability is determined by DATA. Who the heck lives there, what are the trends showing, what do they make, etc. You guys can't come up with anything.

[dtowncitylover]

Almost 40 posts in and no data. Just a bunch of excuses. With all due respect, I don't need to read summaries of every Freep Press or Detroit News hype piece, I asked for some real data.

Are you guys really suggesting that whatever data exists is wrong because there are thousands of college-educated professionals committing insurance fraud and risking misdemeanor infractions for failing to accurately represent address on their DL?

What an arrogant post. I would say that there's no data because it hasn't been collected yet. If you want to do it, be my guest; we're not your personal Census office.

And yes, that could be the case. Extremely plausible and not far fetched. Maybe you should call the cops or something?

[e.p.3]

Who do you think is occupying all the rental units in downtown, including many that have opened up in the past 2 years? Occupancy is near 100%. Are these all poor black people paying the highest rents in the city? Your criticism doesn't pass the smell test either.

Gilbert controls all of the supply through outright ownership or he buys up the rentals via his brokerage firms. If demand was so hot there wouldn't be so many grants needed for projects and the development would be booming. It's not. This is what booming reads like:

"In the next 24 months, virtually every block in a one-mile stretch of 14th is slated to gain a new or renovated building containing residential units and ground-floor retail space. When the dust clears, the strip will have more than 1,200 additional housing units and more than 85,000 square feet of additional retail space."

http://nytimes.com/2012/05/02/reales...evelopers.html

[BankruptcyGuy]

Gilbert controls all of the supply through outright ownership or he buys up the rentals via his brokerage firms. If demand was so hot there wouldn't be so many grants needed for projects and the development would be booming. It's not.

That is categorically false. Perhaps a little research on your behalf is warranted before making statements like that.

[ABetterDetroit]

That is categorically false. Perhaps a little research on your behalf is warranted before making statements like that.

My rational friend, he is a hater, all he has ever been and all he ever will be.

[mwilbert]

Gilbert controls all of the supply through outright ownership or he buys up the rentals via his brokerage firms.

This is just wrong.

If demand was so hot there wouldn't be so many grants needed for projects and the development would be booming. It's not. This is what booming reads like:

"In the next 24 months, virtually every block in a one-mile stretch of 14th is slated to gain a new or renovated building containing residential units and ground-floor retail space. When the dust clears, the strip will have more than 1,200 additional housing units and more than 85,000 square feet of additional retail space."


http://nytimes.com/2012/05/02/reales...evelopers.html

I agree with you here. What Midtown and Downtown are doing is improving, not booming. Rents in DC are high enough to allow unsubsidized construction. Rents in Detroit have not been, and may not be now, so supply is constrained regardless of how much demand there may be at current prices. Hence no boom. When rents reach that point, which it looks like will happen fairly soon, then we will see whether there is sufficient demand at the required prices to have an actual boom. I tend to think not, but I do expect the population of greater downtown to grow faster than it has as higher prices make it possible to create more housing units.

Consider that if you doubled the population of the 7.2, that would basically mean that instead of having maybe 0.7% of the metro population, it would have 1.4% of the metro and maybe 9% of the city's population. That would be a dramatic change for that area, but it wouldn't be any kind of radical shift in the broader scheme of things. A moderate change in the perceived attractiveness of the center city could easily cause a shift that size, especially in conjunction with an apparent shift in preferences for more urban living. Will that actually happen? I don't know, too many unpredictable factors. But I think it is safe to say that so far the effect is small.

[Bham1982]

Who do you think is occupying all the rental units in downtown, including many that have opened up in the past 2 years? Occupancy is near 100%. Are these all poor black people paying the highest rents in the city? Your criticism doesn't pass the smell test either.

Rental vacancy rates nationwide are usually around 5%. In Detroit, they're much worse.

And, no the Freep artcles breathlessly claiming "near 100% downtown occupancy" are not accurate. If they were, that would be indicative of normalcy, not some strong demand for new housing.

[nain rouge]

But what makes you think Detroiters' do not want that life style again.

I spent the first 25 years of my life in Warren, and last year split between Detroit and Virginia. The thing I've realized is, Detroit is such a fight. And it's heartbreaking to see that in many other cities, what people are fighting so hard for in Detroit is just there for the taking, low hanging fruit plucked with almost no effort.

Detroit has - and I hate personifying cities, governments, and countries - a messianic complex. There's an element of magical thinking in people's opinions of the city. When in reality, it was just a city built like all the others in America, then dragged into a death spiral by a combination of prejudice and disinvestment. When I look upon Detroit, I see people scavenging among ruins for items, ideas, and feelings that they can reassemble into a self-confirming, illusory world of their own device.

What I don't see is a living, breathing city. What's an industrial giant without industry? A hollow shell that can only be animated again through the power of imagination. Old Detroit is gone. Long gone.

You know, in America, you're supposed to take safety for granted. America is littered with urban cities that, compared to Detroit, are thriving and safe to an unimaginable degree. So why Detroit? That's the question I ask. There are places you can live where the spirit of what Detroit once was still lives.

Sometimes cities die. If you look throughout history, few have survived. Even the Romans knew when it was time to quit the Forum and let it be.

I don't doubt that one day they'll have successfully built a great urban theme park upon the Detroit streets. But to me, it's not Detroit. What's left of that old city is but a few dying embers. The Motor City trampled the Paris of the Midwest. Now, disinvestment has trampled the Motor City.

It's a brave new world in Detroit.

[BankruptcyGuy]

Rental vacancy rates nationwide are usually around 5%. In Detroit, they're much worse.

And, no the Freep artcles breathlessly claiming "near 100% downtown occupancy" are not accurate. If they were, that would be indicative of normalcy, not some strong demand for new housing.

Midtown Detroit publishes an every-so-often survey of mid- and downtown apartment rental vacancy. As of their last report, occupancy was 97.1%. That is consistent with anecdotal evidence I have heard from practitioners [[landlords, bankers, etc.) as well.

[motz]

Midtown Detroit publishes an every-so-often survey of mid- and downtown apartment rental vacancy. As of their last report, occupancy was 97.1%. That is consistent with anecdotal evidence I have heard from practitioners [[landlords, bankers, etc.) as well.

But because that report supports something Bham1982 doesn't believe in, it's just propaganda about the fictitious revival of Detroit. You have to understand, there are people that do not want to believe that things are different now than they were even 2-3 years ago. I can tell you that finding a place in the Midtown area means being willing to sign a lease and move in with sometimes a days notice. If you don't take that place right there, you might be SOL for a few weeks to months. But that doesn't matter because Bham1982 reasons.

[Bham1982]

But because that report supports something Bham1982 doesn't believe in, it's just propaganda about the fictitious revival of Detroit.

If you believe that there really is some great demand for housing downtown, why hasn't a single building been built or renovated absent significant subsidies?

That's all the proof I need. Not a damn thing gets built without taxpayer dollars. There just isn't sufficient demand right now.

And you should call up the big downtown property owners, because strangely they have lots of advertised vacancies. Lafayettte Park has highrise doorman rentals available from $575, which is extremely affordable and not remotely indicative of some huge shortage of living space.

In a thriving city a downtown highrise doorman building will have rents starting at 3k a month or higher not $575. In a thriving city you don't have taxpayer subsidized buildings like Book-Cadillac that haven't sold out after nearly 10 years of marketing and price cuts.

[Lowell]

If you believe that there really is some great demand for housing downtown, why hasn't a single building been built or renovated absent significant subsidies?

That's all the proof I need. Not a damn thing gets built without taxpayer dollars. There just isn't sufficient demand right now.

And you should call up the big downtown property owners, because strangely they have lots of advertised vacancies. Lafayette Park has highrise doorman rentals available from $575, which is extremely affordable and not remotely indicative of some huge shortage of living space.

In a thriving city a downtown highrise doorman building will have rents starting at 3k a month or higher not $575.

Just because subsidies are obtained does not mean the project would not have happened.

It can also can mean that subsidies are available for whatever encouragement reasons and a developer would be stupid to not take advantage of it. We see this corporate welfare doled out by MEGA and other state agencies all the time for all over the state.

[Eber Brock Ward]

If you believe that there really is some great demand for housing downtown, why hasn't a single building been built or renovated absent significant subsidies?

That's all the proof I need. Not a damn thing gets built without taxpayer dollars. There just isn't sufficient demand right now.

And you should call up the big downtown property owners, because strangely they have lots of advertised vacancies. Lafayettte Park has highrise doorman rentals available from $575, which is extremely affordable and not remotely indicative of some huge shortage of living space.

In a thriving city a downtown highrise doorman building will have rents starting at 3k a month or higher not $575. In a thriving city you don't have taxpayer subsidized buildings like Book-Cadillac that haven't sold out after nearly 10 years of marketing and price cuts.

I lived at 445 E Ohio for a spell [[a downtown highrise doorman building) in Chicago, and it was $1132/mo. Same with 1. E. Delaware, where it was ~$1700/mo. The former was about $1.50/ft2, while the latter was about $2.30/ft2.

Now if you want to argue Chicago's not "thriving," sure I'll buy that.

[Bham1982]

I lived at 445 E Ohio for a spell [[a downtown highrise doorman building) in Chicago, and it was $1132/mo. Same with 1. E. Delaware, where it was ~$1700/mo. The former was about $1.50/ft2, while the latter was about $2.30/ft2.

Now if you want to argue Chicago's not "thriving," sure I'll buy that.

Chicago, as a whole, is most certainly not thriving. It's possible the weakest major metro area after Detroit.

The Chicago core has always been vibrant, and those rents you quote aren't accurate, at least not in 2014. A newer highrise building with doorman will rent for at least $1,500-$2,000. A spacious apartment, anywhere in a prime neighborhood will be closer to 3k a month.