Detroit v Brooklyn

This could have easily been a post about why Eminem is a superior rapper to Jay-Z but I will save that for when the new Eminem album comes out and buries Jay-Z's newest tribute to his royal holiness himself.

The other night, I had dinner in NYC with some Detroiter buddies and the conversation steered toward Detroit real estate (a minor obsession of mine for the moment). I did a little search for comparable properties in Detroit and Brooklyn. Brooklyn, being the edgier crustier sister borough to Manhattan where prices have gone parabolic, had more similar characteristics to the D. I found a couple 4,000 sq ft homes and here is what came back.

I thought the crime statistics were particularly interesting. Of course there are reasons why this analysis is flawed, chiefly because Brooklyn has 2.5 million people and Detroit has 700,000. Detroit covers an area of 150 sq. miles and Brooklyn is only 90 sq mi. That is a lot of less congested space to run away from stray bullets.   

Kidding aside, I did bias my search to Indian Village in Detroit and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn so I guess this proves that the right kind of data mining can prove any thesis.  My point is that even the most dangerous parts of NYC still trade at a silly premium relative to the safe parts of Detroit. I guess it all depends on how you define "value".  

Hat tip to Larry Chen!

SOURCES:

BROOKLYN

http://spotcrime.com/#40.684766%2C%20-73.94201

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/927343-multi-364-jefferson-ave-bedford-stuyvesant-brooklyn

DETROIT

http://spotcrime.com/#indian%20village%2C%20detroit

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2532-Seminole-St-Detroit-MI-48214/88291661_zpid/

    

What you can get in Detroit

We used to live in the West Village in an apartment building called the Printing House.  It was an old industrial print factory that was converted into cool loft apartments in the 70's.  I recently heard the values of these apartments have gone parabolic.  

According to StreetEasy, you can buy a lovely 3 bedroom apartment in the Printing House for a cool $4.25 million. This runs for about $1,700 a sq. ft. and comes fully equipped with a doorman and all the luxury a small family could ask for. 

3 Br loft apartment in NYC's Printing House

That sounded like a pretty lofty price to a lay person like me. I wanted to see how far my money could go in Detroit.  In keeping with the "printing house" theme, I was looking for some similar loft apartments until i came across a listing for what is effectively the entire printing INDUSTRY of Detroit:  the Detroit Free Press Building.

The Detroit Free Press Building

You can own this entire historic 300,000 sq ft building for around $5 million right in the heart of downtown Detroit. They are saying it is ripe to be converted into 200 loft apartments. A sale price could come out to about $16 per sq. ft.  Not a lot of downside in this compared with owning real estate priced 100X higher. 

Talk about opportunity!  If only the mainstream media would spend less time focusing on the disaster porn and more time on the people and businesses that are coming up with creative solutions for Detroit. There are several places in the D that have this kind of potential.  Blank canvases - looking for smart and adventurous entrepreneurs who want to build something from nothing.   

     

Recovery Begins....Next Week

A friend of mine said he wants to open a wine bar and told me there were "tons" of vacant store fronts in my neighborhood.  I did not recall "tons" of space for rent so I paid attention when walking up Hudson St. in the West Village yesterday and was surprised to find just that.  These pictures were taken in the 6 block stretch between Barrow St and Bank St. I understand this is just a small sample, but I find it somewhat odd that "recovery" looks like. I would add that last week I had lunch with a friend who works in commercial real estate in New York and he was very optimistic and said everything was great in the city...I am no expert and I am sure he has much better information than me, but I found that these pictures tell a slightly different story.

Hudson St in Manhattan's West Village