Michigan Home sold for $1.75 on Ebay

[Barney]

"With a winning bid of just $1.75, a Chicago woman has won an auction for an abandoned home in Saginaw."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081001/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cheap_home

... but "experts" are telling people the $700 Billion will pay off in spades for the taxpayers.

[parke]

It sold for more than this one did:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080813/METRO/808130360/&imw=Y

[angelatc]

WHen I was a kid in the 70's the cities foreclosed on houses like that for taxes, and then sold the properties to owners for $1, via a lottery system. The owners had to agree to live in the homes for a minimum amount of time before they could sell it and they had to improve the properties.

I don't know if the plan worked, because I was just a kid, but I was left with the impression that it did.

[invisible]

WHen I was a kid in the 70's the cities foreclosed on houses like that for taxes, and then sold the properties to owners for $1, via a lottery system. The owners had to agree to live in the homes for a minimum amount of time before they could sell it and they had to improve the properties.

I don't know if the plan worked, because I was just a kid, but I was left with the impression that it did.

It worked very well in Baltimore, these neighborhoods are now gentrified and considered very desirable. Then politically connected (read campaign contributions to the mayor and entire city council) demolition contractors convinced the local government to accept HUD money, which was then used to destroy instead of rebuild entire neighborhoods. When Martin O'Malley (sp?) was running for mayor, he lied and claimed that he never accepted campaign contributions from demolition contractors, in spite of it being printed in two papers that they were right up there among the biggest contributors to his campaign. None of the media ever called him out on this lie, he went on to become mayor and then govenor, and the illegal demolitions continue in Baltimore to this day.