A couple of weeks ago a fellow from Britain was on this forum wanting some help with finding the Wayne County Deeds office and other locations. He was here to process purchases of dirt cheap Detroit houses for British investors.

Tomorrow I'm having a fellow come out to view my late mothers house near Balduck Park to take photos for British inverstors to buy.

It seems that with housing prices so high in the UK... and many people living there only in "semi-detached" houses, they view Detroit real estate as a great investment. They're buying them up on the cheap... but the management and rental of the properties is being handled by local real estate companies.

This is happening on a much larger scale than most on this forum realize. The problem is that some of the best areas of Detroit [[such as the far east side in the 48224 zip code) is going from home ownership to rental property very quickly. Renters don't do a good job of landscaping [[as is becoming apparent in that area)... and banks will NOT lend money for locals to get a mortgage.

Yes... there are a lot of empty houses in many areas of Detroit... but this does not bode well for the city in the long run.

In a sense I view this almost the same way I would view the purchasing of downtown buildings by out of state owners... and we've seen how that has worked out for the Book Building/Tower and now the First National Building.

I also realize that it is better to have an investor owner of an occupied property, rather than a bank owner of an empty property... but again... in the long run this does not bode well. After an investor has recouped their investment after a few years of rental [[deferrred maintenance??)... then what??