Noelle Knox
USA Today
James Ratcliff is selling this two-story brick home, built in 1996 on the Grand River. This 6-bedroom home with a 3-car garage, a boathouse and views of a waterfall and river is the most expensive on the Lansing market. List price: $997,000. Price: $997,000 Bedrooms: 6 Bathrooms: 5 full baths, 2 half baths Size: 4,031 square feet Features: Hardwood floors, 3 fireplaces, 3-car garage, boathouse, waterfall, river views.
This Cape Cod-style house on a corner lot is on the market. Price: $111,900 Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 1 full, 1 half Size: 1,080 square feet Features: Two bedrooms on ground floor, office upstairs, laundry room, finished basement. Two-car garage, shed, fenced backyard.
Layoffs in the auto industry throughout the state are the primary reason. Michigan has some of the highest mortgage foreclosure rates in the country. Lenders, stuck with thousands of empty homes, are unloading them at prices “significantly under market value, and that skews the numbers,” said Matt Robertson of Century 21 Looking Glass. He adds that many foreclosed homes in the Lansing area are selling for around $50,000.
For the average homeowner who has a house for sale, Robertson says: “It makes it more challenging. You have to have things done to your house to make it more appealing. But buyers need to keep in mind that with foreclosures, they need significant investments; they are not move-in ready.”
As the state capital, Lansing is blessed with one of the lowest unemployment rates in Michigan. The area also benefits from its hospitals, which are expanding, as is the local Michigan State University.
“If we didn’t have the university, I don’t think I would live here,” because it adds so much to the community, says Lynne Van Deventer, an agent at CB Hubbell BriarWood-East, who posted record sales last year thanks to an influx of people into Lansing’s suburbs.
