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A mother living in Detroit has traded in her four-bedroom home for a 2006 minivan.
LaWanda Flake, a 36-year-old, disabled mother of six traded in her four-bedroom, three-bath house, located in one of the city's better neighborhoods and valued at $96,000 for a 2006 Chevrolet Uplander with 85,000 miles, valued at between $5000 and $8,500.
"I had a lot of good offers, some from out of state. It turned out I took one of the first offers I got because I felt like it helped us both," Flake told the Detroit News. "They needed the house more than anyone I spoke with. They kept telling me it was a blessing to them. I really feel like I made a good decision."
Flake said she posted the house offer on Craigslist because she needed a new car in order to get her children to school on time because the city's bus system was proving unreliable. Flake has an irregularly updated Twitter account, where you can see some of her complaints about the bus system.
Now, there are a couple of details that make this story far less crazy than it sounds at first. Number one, Flake and her six children are not living in the minivan. They've relocated to a three-bedroom home nearby that she was able to purchase on a $4,000 land contract.
And even though the house was once home to Diana Ross and the Supremes, Flake purchased it last year at a foreclosure sale for $3,600, not its near six-figure retail value. The house reportedly has several thousand dollars worth of necessary repairs waiting for the new owners, including a new furnace and water heater.


The family who purchased Flake's home has decided to stay anonymous for now. Flake agreed to not mention their names in the story, but she did note that she received several more lucrative offers for her home, including a Montana couple who offered Flake her choice of one of their four vehicles. And a man who recently moved back to Detroit from Las Vegas offered in trade his 1996 Bentley Brooklands luxury sedan, valued at about $20,000. A third trade offer was for a 1996 Corvette.
"I said, Oh wow! What am I going to do with a Corvette? I can't do anything practical with a Corvette," Flake said.
Of course, with the current state of property values in Detroit, it sounds like Flake could have traded in one of those cars for another two or three houses.

   

I read the post, but the headline is misleading. There are no houses worth $96,000 in Detroit.

   

Yup, she got $8k or so in trade for it, so that's what it's really worth. But to me that's the point - the point is what's happening in some areas to the housing market.

   

That's nuts

   

Where have you been? It's been like that in Detroit for ages.

   

I think Detroit was going downhill long before the latest housing price drop.

   

It takes awhile. I've read that the city is 30% grassland and that they plan on demolishing 40,000 houses. Serious decay.

   

You're likely right. A couple of years ago I read an article where they said they couldn't afford to support the infastructure of the outlying areas of the city and were gonna buy people out and move them closer into the city.

I guess if what you say is true it started back then and has just carried on. But if anyone is interested in what Detroit looks like now just go to google maps and take a tour of places like Woodward Ave that was the hotspot for young people in the 60's.

   

The way things are going, it'll be lucky if Detroit is worth $96,000.

   

It's not quite as bad as in Atlas Shrugged, but it's a huge step in that direction.

   

that was a fairly confusing transaction, but I'm only going to read it once.

   

unfortunately yes.

   

Maybe I am stupid, but if "the market value" is $96,000 (appraised or just "hmmm, let's see...?), let's say she could sell it to someone who is willing to pay $40K (which is still 10x as much as she paid for it... I must say I can't believe what I am hearing...), she could buy all her kids cars for that if she wanted... And herself a Prius or something...

   

1. According to the article the house requires several thousand dollars in repairs (seeing how it was a foreclosure purchase I'm sure the repairs involve the missing copper wiring and plumbing that the previous owners may have torn out as a going away present). Seeing how she bought the house for $3,600 she either doesn't have the money to repair the house to a sellable condition in order to flip it or the cost of the repairs will exceed the house's value;

2. The house is in Detroit.

The article may claim the house is worth $96,000, but that may be it's potential value not it's current value. The only person person who would be willing to buy it is another person who's as big as a sucker as she was.

   

How can a house (and land) only be worth $3,600?????

Here, you pay $200,000 for an unfinished, in need upgrades/repairs house...

   

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