neonvincent

It's been more than a month since I promised you all an analysis of the Census for Detroit. I haven't exactly followed through, even though the Census figured in several posts since then, so it's high time I bring you some more news inspired by the Census, even if it is a bit old.

Detroit News: Empty homes dot Oakland County's upscale suburbs
Laura Berman
Last Updated: April 07. 2011 5:47PM

Numbers don't lie: They tell unpleasant stories, including new census numbers pinpointing high vacancy rates in some of Oakland County's most elite suburbs.

The half-secret behind many of the well-maintained facades and manicured lawns of some of the area's most lavish properties is that nobody's home.

Birmingham (9.4 percent) and Bloomfield Hills (10.2 percent) showed vacancy rates significantly higher than 10 years ago. Those rates are similar to Detroit's vacancy rate a decade ago.

Those of you from metro Detroit reading this entry should understand exactly what this means. For those reading who are not familiar with the area, these two towns are very upscale suburbs, the equivalent of Beverly Hills and Westwood/Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Imagine those areas with 9-10% vacancy rates. That would be very distressing.

Tiny Lake Angelus, with 132 households in north Oakland County, is historically a pocket of the county's wealth. Always private, the census takers also found that 13.2 percent of the residences were unoccupied. Vacancies in Farmington Hills were 6.8 percent, up from 3.3 percent in 2000.

The first one--eep! This enclave of Richistan is not doing well at all! The second shows that things are bad, but that areas that are more solidly middle-class instead of rich, people are staying in their homes if they can.

"One of the striking things is that the foreclosure crisis has hit parts of Oakland County that we would have thought are untouchable," said Andy Meisner, Oakland County treasurer.

This is one of the signs that things are not business as usual (BAU), nor are they going to be for the foreseeable future. Too bad. In a BAU climate, I'd be very optimistic about an economic recovery around here. There's nothing a lot of energy for economic activity wouldn't fix. But this isn't BAU, so I'm not very optimistic about BAU solutions.

Back to the article.

Vacancy is a distress signal and communities try to hide the red flags of emptiness. Owners — even banks — maintain the lawns and exteriors, and when they don't, neighbors call the city.

"Even our blight is better," quipped Annabel Cohen, a Bloomfield Township homeowner who hasn't noticed any deterioration.

Snerk You wish. Also, let's see how long that lasts.

Others aren't as chipper, saying that as the crisis goes on, homeowners are more likely to be as distressed as their unsold properties.

Lots more at the link in the headline. I will pass on on one bit of advice from the article before moving on--watch the lawns this summer to see which houses are really occupied, and which are just being kept up to look that way by the bank. Also, keep in mind that those figures are from a year ago. Things could be worse by now. Or, they could be better.

( The Detroit Free Press has more articles about the real estate situation here in Metro Detoit. I'll give the good, the bad, and the ugly. )

Above originally posted as The Census on vacancy rates plus the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about March 2011 real estate in Metro Detroit on Crazy Eddie's Motie News along with Earth Day in the National Progressive Press.

The series on the Detroit 2010 Census figures continues today at Crazy Eddie's Motie News. The meat of the post is a video embed of a news story from last night, which I'm also posting below. Hey, lazy posts are what happens when I decide to play Civilization instead of blogging.