Hmmm....As a former Property Manager at a fairly well known apartment management company I oversaw an apartment community in Southfield from 2006 to 2010. I will say this, many of our new residents did move from Detroit but definitely not all. We however did not run a slumlord operation. We respected the residents and the residents, for the most part respected us back. The problems that we saw were outsiders causing problems [[mainly car break-ins or thefts) but definitely not what you are describing. We kept up the apartments, grounds and common areas and charged rents comparable to our sister communities in Canton, Farmington Hills and Harrison Twp. We had stricter qualifying criteria and took a no-nonsense approach with late rent, starting evicting proceedings almost immediately if rent was late. It worked well and the residents were happy. So it IS till possible to run and live in a decent community in Southfield. Oh and guess what? We took over a downtown Detroit highrise last year and the same type of thing started to happen. Set the expectation at the start, invest in the property, don't allow garbage to move in!
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