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4 BR, 3.5 BA, Grm FtrWhy I want to buy a house in Flint, Mich.

By Gordon YoungPosted Thursday, June 18, 2009, at 5:42 PM ET

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"You mean like an exotic dancer?" I ask. "For $190,000?"

"Oh yeah, she got a good deal. I tell you, if you have a decent job, do what you're supposed to do with your money, save your pennies, and pay off your bills, you can have the world by the tail in Flint."

(I look up the specs on the house later that day: 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 3 fireplaces, 1.6 landscaped acres, 3,870 square feet.)

A few minutes later I'm standing in the marble foyer of a nearby house owned by the former editor of the Flint Journal, which recently cut publishing to three days a week and laid off a big chunk of the editorial staff. He's moved on to a job in Ann Arbor, but his 3,159-square-foot house, with a new kitchen, a chandelier in the dining room, and inlaid mahogany floors, sits unsold. It's listed at $236,000. Using the stripper's place as a benchmark, I feel confident saying that the newspaper industry will post record profits before he gets that price.

"People ask me why I live in Flint," Eashoo says as he takes in the beamed ceiling and fireplace in the large den. "Besides the fact that I love it here, it's so cheap! I mean, you can afford to go to Florida on vacation or Chicago on the weekend."

***

As much as I want to avoid being one of those San Franciscans who works his personal real estate narrative into every conversation, in Flint I can't help it. I find myself telling people that my girlfriend and I unsuccessfully bid on nine houses—once getting outbid by $123,000—in our quest to break into the bottom bracket of the market in 2004. We were only preapproved for $550,000, I explain, and we didn't want to fork over our life savings for a down payment.

I try to build suspense by lowering my voice as I say we were about ready to give up when we lucked into a 700-square-foot house in Bernal Heights. The owner had rehabbed the place herself, and all the other interested buyers were contractors who planned to tear it down and rebuild. We wrote a syrupy letter gushing that we fell in love with the house the moment we saw it and that we'd be honored to live in a place so lovingly restored. (We didn't mention the $25,000 in foundation work we knew it needed or the fact the place shook when you walked through it too quickly.)

I consider this a triumphant tale, proof that a couple with a combined household income well south of $100,000 can conquer the Bay Area real estate market with thrift, hard work, and a series of very dubious no-interest loans. (A willingness to never eat out or to save for retirement also helps.) But it's clear Flintoids are left wondering how a seemingly bright guy educated in the local Catholic school system could be such a colossal dumb ass.

"Seven hundred square feet?" asks Bill Gainey, a commercial pilot I met at lunch one day who tools around Flint in a banged-up 1956 Buick Century. "My ballroom is bigger than that."

Yes, it appears the Hiram "Hardwood" Smith House, Bill's 7,200-square-foot residence in downtown Flint, does indeed have a ballroom. And a front door that's 11 feet high. And an entry hallway that's 40 feet long. And more than 70 windows, but who's counting? He sheepishly admits he paid $250,000 for it in 2007. He's a little embarrassed; he thinks he overpaid. And he clearly thinks I'm a little nuts.

He may be right on both counts.

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Gordon Young's blog is Flint Expatriates.

COMMENTS

Flint's a great town.

Even now, if you can let yourself see it. Lot of history, lot of greatness, and still lots of people that want to be good.

While not born in Michigan, I've been here since I was about 2 or 3, young enough to not remember anywhere else but here. I'll probably die here and be buried here, too. But I've always lived up north, and as such I've always held a kind of romanticized view of downstate, the auto industry, great old manufacturing towns like Flint and Pontiac, not to mention Detroit proper. Where else can you drive 10 minutes and pas through five cities? Well, maybe California.

Up here in Traverse City, I don't have to look at the crap of downstate every day, but I see it on the local news, I follow it. While I'd never leave up north for downstate, I'd love to have a second home there, once I actually am able to get my first home.

There's romance downstate, real American history. Dreams, ideas, grit and determination. If you can get in there now, I would. It'll be a great place eventually, and you can say you got in when it was still hard.

-- opus512
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A rapid turnaround for Flint is possible (see Grand Rapids).

I remember growing up in Grand Rapids in the 60's when Flint was still seen as the dynamic city of the future. At that time both cities had similar populations, but Flint was headed up with all those union jobs while GR was slowly dying along with the furniture industry. That has now been totally reversed with over $1 billion in new construction going up in the downtown area alone. I think people from the east side of the state would be amazed how, in a very short time, this place has been transformed into what it is today. With all the money has come an influx of well-educated young people who see GR as a hip place--never thought that would ever happen. Housing prices are also very reasonable. All this has happened as the result of wealthy business people who decided to take a risk and invest in their hometown. I believe that a similar metamorphosis could take place in Flint, but it will take a lot of guts and private money. And just as an aside, I've been all over this country, and Michigan stacks up with anyplace (except for the winter weather). I can drive ten minutes and catch a wild brown trout on a fly right beside a wonderful gourmet restaurant serving incredible walleye and whitefish. Hard to beat that.

-- oreodog
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