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                                    As if …
                                        
We're looking around for a new place to live and since today was a relatively
slow day at the office, I decided to poke around the Detroit [1] area just to
see how economically depressed it was. I grew up in the area and it was more
curiousity than a real desire to live there that made me poke around the
Realtor.com [2] site (especially since it seems half the city [3] seems
abandoned [4]).

City: Detoit, 3 or more bedrooms, single family homes, no rental units, show
me what you got.

A 2,522 square foot home, 4 bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms, for $2,000 [5].

In Grosse Pointe (All the sites are realtor sites! No, really!) [6].

Grosse Pointe, which is the South Hamptons of the Detroit area.

I had to double check to make sure I had not selected rental units.

I didn't.

So I'm looking at a 2,522 square foot home, in Grosse Pointe, for $2,000. An
“estimated” $9 per month, according to the Realtor.com site.

I knew Detroit was an economically depressed area, but I didn't expect it to
be that economically depressed.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the next listing was for a seven thousand
square foot [7] home for $2,500. Sure, the taxes for this house run an
approximated $8,000 a year, but hey, that's less than $700 per month, which
is almost half of what we pay to live here in the Facility in the Middle of
Nowhere.

Needless to say, I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around this. The
realtor must have dropped a few zeros when listing the price. Must have!

I then started poking around the listing for the cheaper, 2,522 square foot
home when I found the punch line: it's a lease! It's probably $2,000 per
month to live in the house, not $2,000 and here's the title.

Okay, that's a bit more reasonable then.

At least I can stop thinking about the house now … 

[1] http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/
[2] http://www.realtor.com/
[3] http://detroitblog.blogspot.com/
[4] http://www.detroitfunk.com/
[5] http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?snum=7&mlsttl=&frm=bymap&pgnum=1&mls=xmls&js=on&target=&ct=Detroit&st=MI&sbint=&sbls=&sblo=&areaid=2959&mnsqft=&fid=so&mnprice=0&mxprice=99999999&mnbed=3&mnbath=0&typ=1&typ=4&poe=realtor&x=26&y=3&sid=03E8272FC5C1C&snumxlid=1040046288&lnksrc=00002
[6] http://gpbr.com/
[7] http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?snum=8&mlsttl=&frm=bymap&pgnum=1&mls=xmls&js=on&target=&ct=Detroit&st=MI&sbint=&sbls=&sblo=&areaid=2959&mnsqft=&fid=so&mnprice=0&mxprice=99999999&mnbed=3&mnbath=0&typ=1&typ=4&poe=realtor&x=26&y=3&sid=03E8272FC5C1C&snumxlid=1042109071&lnksrc=00003

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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