Property speculators have wreaked havoc on Detroit over the last decade. Some of the effects are easy to see: blighted properties that fall apart bit by bit for years. Some are easy to feel: historic buildings that sit vacant. Others are easy to measure, like lost tax revenue and publicly funded demolitions on a scale unrivaled anywhere else in the country.
Property speculation was easiest in the years following the housing market collapse, when Wayne County was auctioning off thousands of tax-foreclosed properties a year for very low prices. Property values have shot up in the last few years, as well as the cost of buying at the tax auction, and some of those who bought property when it was cheap might be ready to sell…
Eric Seymour, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who studies Detroit speculation, said that percentage is very high among U.S. cities.
“Speculation is often correlated with historical processes like racial disinvestment and segregation,” he said. “Detroit is such a highly segregated, racialized place, which is one reason why there’s so much of it.”