Partnership To Rehab, Sell Up To 65 Vacant Houses In Detroit
DETROIT (AP) - The city of Detroit is stepping up efforts to stabilize neighborhoods by rehabilitating empty houses and making them move-in ready for auction.
The "Rehabbed and Ready" program was announced Wednesday and calls for improvements to up to 65 vacant houses in four west side neighborhoods.
Home Depot with local contractors will oversee renovation of the houses, which are owned by the Land Bank. Quicken Loans is coming up with a $5 million grant to help finance the work.
Mayor Mike Duggan and the Land Bank have been pushing to renovate vacant houses for sale to individuals and families who want to live in Detroit. It's part of an effort to remove blight and make neighborhoods attractive for potential homeowners.
"The Rehabbed and Ready program will make home ownership in Detroit accessible to more people by giving them the opportunity to purchase a Land Bank home that's move-in ready," Duggan said. "But more than renovating 65 homes, this initiative will provide opportunity to thousands of homeowners in the surrounding neighborhood, as it will allow more accurate appraised values which will generate home financing in the area."
Detroit-based Quicken Loans also will offer financing to qualified buyers for the houses.
Quicken Loans chair and founder Dan Gilbert said the program "adds another critical component" to reviving neighborhoods.
"The neighborhoods of Detroit are already starting to turn around," Gilbert said. "Blighted homes are being removed at a record pace. Other homes are being renovated and we have even seen residential new construction in neighborhoods get under way for the first time in decades."
Open houses are scheduled Saturday for the first homes renovated under the program. They will be auctioned to the highest bidders with minimum bids set at a percentage of how much money was invested in the structures' rehabilitation.
The homes will not be for sale to investors.
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