Can you imagine the virtual TRACTS of land that an aggressive buyer could purchase for a song in the worst Detroit neighborhoods? A couple hundred thousand dollars could probably net several square blocks, if I had to take a guess.
I'm not a gambler by nature, but it would be pretty cool to pony-up the money and subsequently hit a homerun. This is what happened to people who invested in Hoboken and Jersey City, NJ or Brooklyn, NY twenty years ago...they're millionaires now. Sometimes makes me wish that I wasn't so averse to financial risk.
~ Blue Jays ~
That's true, but New York has inherent advantages over places like Detroit. Maybe you're right and someone will hit the jackpot by investing in real estate in Detroit, but I know that before I'd cough up several hundred thousand dollars of my hard-earned cash, I'd want to see a definitive plan that the city has for turning things around; frankly, I just don't see that.
The only thing that Detroit has going for it is that it is in the Midwest (no major natural disasters) and next to a Great Lake, so it's got plenty of water. But seriously: what has Detroit got going for it? What is going to bring people back? What is going to bring businesses there?
Possible, but first it would be necessary to permanently get rid of the Detroit municipality and form a local government that won't kill the golden gosling like Detroit killed the golden goose. Detroit would simply wait for you to pony up, and then tax and regulate you to death like they did to the previous victims owners.