I agree with Dexlin's analysis here but will add that the mid-range stuff will all come in due time. Someone feel free to choke me for saying "trickle down", but that's the inevitable conclusion.
People in the mid-range market don't want to live next to a bunch of abandoned buildings. They don't feel safe there. They don't have enough money to pay for private security. It's just a bad fit, and they can find what they're looking for in the suburbs.
So why not take the abandoned buildings and turn them into a mid-range rental? You can't. The cost to rehab is too high, and the risk is too great to do a project and then not squeeze every potential rent dollar per square foot.
But with every luxury-end that gets done, you're setting the rent comps high and lowering the risk for the next developer. [[Which is riskier, doing the first rehab on a a block of abandoned high-rises? Or doing the last one?) As those risks get lower [[and they are getting lower as the luxury end gigs get filled), more and more investors will be comfortable getting in. I think we'll get more and more diversity among the income scales as development becomes less and less of a crapshoot, which for decades in Detroit, it has been.
I can see Downtown and Midtown becoming luxury high rent [[$1.50 PSF?!?!) while the Corktown/Woodbridge/Lafayette Park surrounding would be more of the $1-$1.25 PSF because of its proximity.
And then the true "middle income" places will be another ring around that.
That's my gut feeling, anyway.
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