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What a $35k house looks like
08/11/04 00:05 , Categories: Ypsilanti 
Today Hillary and I had a new first while out house shopping. It was our second house without power and we were fumbling around in this eight bedroom palace on Harriet. Nobody likes suprises in the dark.
The core of the house was built in 1927 but apparantly some madman acquired a truckload of cinderblocks and build it into a 2,265 sqft fortress, which is now crumbling.
The foyer, for lack of a better word, and front room showed signs of sqatters: broken window on the door, a small cooking area, a "bed" area. With the flash on the camera it's hard to appriciate how dark it really was in there.
I crept slowly down toward the kitchen with Hillary and our realtor behind. I took the few flash photos of dark rooms and when I got into the kitchen the fear crept over me while I was sampling the extensive water damage on the ceiling. I took a step into the middle of the kitchen and found the floor to be alarmingly spongy. A couple more steps confirmed that this floor was not right.
Between the squatters, possiblity of feral animals, haphazard carpentry/masonry, and trick floor, we decided to leave this prize for someone else.
The "Two story multi-family Needs a lot of work. Handyman special." description seems ridiculous now. This house ought to be condemned.
What is it with Ypsilanti and creative cinder blocking?
7 comments
Built in 1900 - and they wanted $95K! Another frankenstein that should be condemned.
We finally settled on a house in Ypsi Twsp. The City taxes were enough to keep us out of the area, to say the least.
We've talked about expanding our search to the township, but I grew up in the middle of nowhere and prefer city living. I'll pay to have stores within walking distance of my house. If things don't work out in Ypsi, we'll probably end up in Detroit.
Seriously, though, I bought a house that I couldn't really comfortably afford, and I had some serious buyer's remorse right afterward, but it has totally paid off. ALL of your mortgage interest is tax deductable, and almost your entire payment for the first 5-10 years is interest -- for me, that meant around $4K more in my pocket a year!! It's a hassle to have to deal with the maintenance and projects that I am constantly working on, but in all, I'm really glad I did it. I don't know what appreciation is like in Ypsi, but my house has also increased in value much, much, much more than if I'd invested the same amount of money.
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