Maybe by this time next year Amazon.com and Bernard J Youngblood will partner, and you can get all the full-service features of conventional online shopping in your auction experience. I expect nothing less than a functional "look inside!" feature.

Until then, it's at best foolish, at worst immoral, to bid on properties without having knocked on the front door and walked all the way around them on foot yourself. Real estate in Detroit is bizarre, and destruction happens fast. If you own something, and don't maintain it or use it, then you are just another parasite. This goes as much for vacant lots as buildings.

If you're going to put a bid in on something, beyond the basic due diligence of rolling your eyeballs across all four walls of your new job, you should at a minimum look up everything the Wayne County Registry of Deeds has on the property. Plan on spending $20 just learning their system, and then another $10-40 per property, depending on how convoluted the history is. And you, or a close friend, should learn how to interpret [[or at least search by) parcel ID and plat/liber/lot, to confirm that you are actually bidding on what you think you are bidding on.

From where I sit, complete due diligence would also include a trip to the BSE&E demo department, to ask whether it is on any of their lists; a trip to the water board, to ask what [[if any) unpaid balance is on the account at that address; and a walkthrough with a skilled, unbiased [[i.e. not your best friend/spouse) carpenter/contractor to estimate how much work the building needs.