then, a mixture of modest homes and a few larger Tudors. Now the houses looked a little worse for wear, and some of the yards were shaggy and overgrown—signs of trouble but not imminent collapse.
The light yellow house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms was immaculate. New siding, carpet, windows, kitchen, and roof. A family had lost it to foreclosure, and a group of guys who worked for Chrysler in Detroit picked it up for $17,000 as an investment. They put more than $50,000 into it and hoped to flip it for $79,000. After more than a hundred showings, Ryan still didn’t have any offers. The price was down to $57,900, as low as the investors could go and still repay their mortgage. Ryan said if it didn’t sell soon, the only options would be turning it into rental property, unloading it with a short sale, or just walking away from it.
To illustrate just how unlikely it was for this house, however shiny and refurbished, to sell for anything near $57,000, Ryan and Jennifer drove me to a similarly sized house on Cadillac Street. It was only a few blocks away, but I was learning that small distances make a big difference in Flint real estate. This neighborhood was more run down, with a sprinkling of abandoned houses. It was near Kettering University, an engineering school that used to be known as General Motors Institute. Kettering was still a pipeline for the automotive industry, but its presence did not seem to be a stabilizing force for an area less than a mile southwest of downtown. The house itself was livable, but not as pristine as the one on Cartier. It had the depressing feel of numerous cheap apartments I’ve called home, with a cracking linoleum floor in the kitchen, cheap appliances, and worn beige carpeting. It was hard to imagine basking in childhood memories or reconvening the Zeitgeist gang for a Midwest vacation in this place. Ryan said it went for $70,000 a few years ago. Now it was listed at $7,000.
“There are so many short sales that there’s a glut of low-cost houses,” Ryan said. “The danger is that speculators will snap up a house like this, rent it for $500 a month, and just slum it out. There could be ten students living in a place like this. That means too many cars, too much foot traffic, and too much partying. But I’d rather have twelve kids in a house instead of six gangbangers or drug dealers.”
Ryan was lamenting how low property values had fallen, but I was worried that they hadn’t fallen enough for my budget. If dumpy houses suitable for drug cribs were going for $7,000 in one of the country’s most depressed real-estate markets, my $3,000 budget was looking highly suspect, the very definition of fuzzy math. A familiar dread was washing over me, one I had experienced regularly during my San Francisco house hunt. I was wondering if I had enough money to make this happen.
Back in the jeep, we headed east past the massive vacant lot along the river that used to be Chevy in the Hole, the setting for some of the Flint Sit-Down Strike’s most memorable scenes. It was the first time I’d been to this spot since the automotive complex was largely demolished over a decade beginning in 1995. I mentioned how geographically disorienting it was without the factories. I knew this area, but I couldn’t figure out where we’d turn to head back downtown without the familiar industrial landmark. Ryan said the same thing happened to him after AC Spark Plug, where his grandfather and uncles worked for decades, was torn down. He used to pass the plant every morning, but he started taking a different route. “Human tragedy is not a great way to start your day,” he said.
Next, we drove to the upscale College Cultural District, although locals often refer to the handsome residential area near Mott Community College and the city’s cultural attractions as “off East Court Street,” a utilitarian designation that used to imply money and sophistication. When my mom was growing up on the East Side, this was where many of “the four hundred” lived, meaning the sons and daughters of Flint’s elite. The rich kids. It still retained some of its lofty status, but like everything else in Flint, it was slipping. The mansions and impressive homes in an array of architectural styles were still a sight to behold, but there were also foreclosures in the area. And renters. And residents with rusted-out cars that indicated they weren’t bankers or professors at UM-Flint. One Flint resident, trying to impart the depths of Flint’s decline, whispered conspiratorially to me over lunch a few days later that even black people were living off East Court. (One of the profound drawbacks of being of Scottish and Dutch descent, with blond hair and blue eyes, is that other white people often feel free to share their unsolicited racist thoughts with me.)
We passed the house where one of my high school girlfriends used to live. I lost my virginity and smoked pot for the first time there—two momentous rites of passage—although they didn’t occur on the same night. Or did they? It was hard to remember. Around the corner we pulled into the driveway of a tasteful two-bedroom, two-bath house that Jennifer was trying to sell. The interior was a little dated, but in a good way. There was a basement rumpus room complete with a full bar and a fireplace—a good place to relax after spending some time in the dry sauna on the second floor. It felt a little like the Brady Bunch house, if Mike and Carol were a little more stylish and liked to drink. I envisioned myself writing for hours in my private study, perhaps smoking a pipe, before descending to the bar in my smoking jacket for a batch of Manhattans. Preferably this would happen in the early evening rather than the morning.
Every house has a story, and this one was a reminder that not every Flint resident saddled with a depreciating property was completely destitute. The couple who owned this place happened to be vacationing in Italy at the time. The house was completely paid off when they decided to retire and leave Flint. To pay for a new home in Florida, they took out a $175,000 mortgage with an interest-only teaser rate in 2005 because they planned to pay it off quickly when they sold the house. It was a great plan until the bottom fell out of the market. “Now they’re stuck maintaining two homes, flying back and forth to Florida, and slowly bleeding their retirement account dry,” Jennifer said.
The solution? A short sale. Although the house was officially listed at $180,000, the bank would settle for $80,000. “Someone is going to get a beautiful house, the kind of house you’d be happy to retire in, for the price of a starter home,” Jennifer said.
Obviously, this was way too much house for Traci and me, but I was enjoying the voyeuristic thrill of touring such a desirable residence. During my unfortunate Great Gatsby phase in high school—when I wore saddle shoes and patchwork pants—I longed to live in one of these places instead of our humble home on Bassett Place. But even if I could afford it, this house would be all wrong. I’d almost be taking advantage of Flint rather than helping it. The only sweat equity I’d earn here would be in the sauna.
All that remained now was Flint’s finest neighborhood, Woodcroft Estates, an enclave of mansions and high-end trophy homes built with GM lucre when life was good in the Vehicle City. It didn’t take long to get there after we cut through downtown and drove south on Miller Road. We turned onto a secluded, winding street, and I spotted the sprawling house of a childhood friend, complete with an in-ground pool. I asked Jennifer if the family still lived there.
“Nope, we sold that to a stripper last year for a buck ninety,” she said.
“You mean like an exotic dancer?” I asked. “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.”
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