“This growth in housing wealth reflects positively on the efforts of multiple stakeholders to improve Detroit’s housing market and strengthen its neighborhoods since the bankruptcy, including initiatives to remove blight and rehabilitate distressed properties.” The report reads, “At the same time, many challenges remain, and more work needs to be done to boost homeownership demand and make neighborhoods more attractive locations for potential homebuyers.”
The conclusion continued, “Also, with the rise in property values come concerns about housing affordability, especially for Detroiters who are not homeowners and are facing high rental values, and the displacement of residents who can no longer afford to maintain their homes, especially those who own older properties.”
The report also notes that it is working with some limitations and assumptions due to the data that is available, but those assumptions also mean that the report could be understating how much wealth has been created for homeowners through the rising values of their homes. Regardless of the study’s acknowledgement of its own limitations, the Associated Press reported that Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan praised the resilience of the Detroit residents who stayed and helped to create homeowner wealth in the city during a news conference.
“For decades, Detroit’s homeowners saw their family wealth evaporate as home values declined,” Mayor Duggan said. “Now, those who stayed, most notably Black homeowners, have gained nearly $3 billion in new generational wealth because of our city’s neighborhoods comeback.”
Ken Scott, a former President of the Detroit Realtist Association and Detroit Association of Realtors as well as a HUD certified housing counselor, said in a press release that the study aligns with what has been discussed by Detroit’s realtors during the past few years.
“There has been a huge shift for the better in Detroit’s home values, driven largely by the improvements being made in neighborhoods. My fellow realtors and I have been seeing this shift for years. Black owned homes are rising in value and Black families are gaining the most family wealth,” Scott said. “And while home values have risen dramatically, there is a lot of growth yet to come. Detroit homes are beautiful and dollar-for-dollar still a great value.”
Source: Black Enterprise
