Down 71%

The Con

On last week’s edition of Real Time With Bill Maher, there was a piece about the failure of Detroit.  After showing a home in utter disrepair, and commenting that the average home in the city sold for $18,000, Maher quipped: “Clint Eastwood was right to that Grand Torino.  It’s worth more than the home.”

Maher only touched the surface of the problems facing the area of Detroit.  Even affluent Oakland County, which contains my hometown of Bloomfield Hills, is feeling the crunch.  According to my friend Jim Horn who owns a Detroit area mortgage brokerage, the drop in real estate prices in what was the most affluent county in the Untied States just a few years ago, is staggering.  Oakland County itself has seen a 47% decline in its real estate value during the last quarter with Pontiac, the county seat, down 71%.

It appears the only optimism to be found in Detroit is for the Tigers to take the AL Central and then the World Series.  However, with pitcher Jeremy Bonderman and Gary Sheffield already injured those hopes may be dashed before they actually can be fulfilled.

It could be worse, we Detroiters and Detroit expats could be pinning all our hopes on the Lions.