Unbelievably inexpensive homes are attracting artists to the Motor City, where they can live and work.

by Mike Kravinsky

It's an old story. Starving artists finds cheap place to live, other artists follow, general public sees artists, move in, public move in, prices go up, artists move out to another cheap place to live. 

It's starting to happen right now. At least the artist part. Welcome to Detroit, the land of the $100 dollar house. And there are a few artists determined to be in it this time for a much longer haul.

To be honest, yes, there are homes that can be purchased for $100 dollars, but most houses in distressed neighborhoods run between $500 to $8000, still not bad, depending on the work needed. There are quite a few of them too. Around 11,000 homes have been foreclosed on in the Detroit area. 

The inexpensive fixer uppers have attracted artists like Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert, local residents who brought a house for $1900, and are fixing it up to live and work in. 

The home was in really bad shape. It hadn't been lived in for 2 years, been stripped of all appliances and wiring, and had a small fire caused by squatters. 

Their logic was simple. Two years ago, the house they bought was being sold for $70,000 dollars. There were no takers. The home went into foreclosure and has been sitting vacant ever since. Banks, which are trying to get these homes off their books, along with the taxes they have to pay on them, sell them at auction for unbelievably low prices. So even with all new environmentally friendly construction they have planned, they still will make out in this deal. 

Mitch and Gina have bought more property in the Hamtramck neighborhood on the western end of Detroit as well. The house next door was purchased for $500 dollars, which they turned around and sold to other artists for a $50 dollar profit. Mitch hopes to turn the neighborhood into an artist enclave. 

One of the $100 dollar foreclosed houses on the market was recently purchased by Sarah Wagner and Jon Brumit. Artists in their mid 30's who moved to Detroit from Chicago. They see the house as a blank canvas in which they can do anything. 

Interest in Detroit property has gone beyond US borders to artists and art organizations in Germany and the Netherlands who are looking at homes thanks to the urging by the Cope's. 

Cope does admit that it's not the safest neighborhood, he's been threatened and robbed several times, but he believes in the potential and possibility of inexpensive housing for artists. 

Toby Barlow, formally of Brooklyn, now a Detroit resident and author of "Sharp Teeth", wrote an interesting op-ed piece in the NY Times. He believes that, despite that economic challenges Detroit faces, There is an amazing potential. 

...the city offers a much greater attraction for artists than $100 houses. Detroit right now is just this vast, enormous canvas where anything imaginable can be accomplished. From Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project (think of a neighborhood covered in shoes and stuffed animals and you’re close) to Matthew Barney’s “Ancient Evenings” project (think Egyptian gods reincarnated as Ford Mustangs and you’re kind of close), local and international artists are already leveraging Detroit’s complex textures and landscapes to their own surreal ends.

In a way, a strange, new American dream can be found here, amid the crumbling, semi majestic ruins of a half-century’s industrial decline. The good news is that, almost magically, dreamers are already showing up. Mitch and Gina have already been approached by some Germans who want to build a giant two-story-tall beehive.

Will this be one of the ways Detroit makes a transition to prosperity?  It will be interesting to watch.

Here is a CNN video about Mitch, Gina and Tony, and what's going on in Detroit.

Research for this article provided by NPR, NY Times and ABC News.

(Photo of artist supplies by flickr user no trams to lime street and Detroit sign by Mandj98 used under a Creative Commons license.)