New home construction is pricy, but still a priority
It costs about $150,000 more to build a new home in Detroit than it does to build a new multifamily unit, per a recent analysis from the city's housing department.
Why it matters: New home construction is rare but increasingly desirable as Detroit navigates complex housing challenges around needs for affordability, as well as amenities for residents outside downtown.
Driving the news: City council requested the analysis as leaders seek housing solutions. The Housing and Revitalization Department's report seeks to help the city determine where and how to invest its resources to further those affordability goals.
Though the department says it should continue prioritizing financing multifamily affordable housing for low-income residents, it also says it's worthwhile to work to lower the cost of new single-family housing in a city with a lot of vacant land and historically high homeownership.
Stunning stat: A new home in Detroit with three bedrooms, two baths and a garage would cost nearly $450,000 to construct, based on the data the department collected. Of that price tag, the direct construction costs are estimated at $336,000.
For comparison, the March report found the average multifamily cost per unit is $304,000.
The report acknowledges costs vary greatly depending on land, infrastructure and environmental issues.
Yes, but: In 2024, Detroit's homes sold for an average of $87,500, per Realcomp — roughly $360,000 less than the price of the example of a new home.
Between the lines: The department used data from local developments as examples, as well as plans from projects in the pipeline, estimates and housing finance tools.
Flashback: Detroit allocated a lot of federal affordable housing funding to single-family homes from 2000 to 2008 developed by local community development groups. The mortgage crisis put an end to those efforts.
Economic challenges from the recession remained, with low home values and high vacancy. The focus since the bankruptcy has been on multi-unit affordable housing, with more publicly funded financial tools available for those types of homes.
By the numbers: Detroit issued 34 permits for new single-family home construction last year, according to the city. It's a small figure, but up from 18 in 2023, seven in 2022 and nine in 2021.
What they're saying: Sami Abdallah, a Detroit real estate investor and owner of Re/Max City Centre in Southfield, tells Axios the city is seeing individual successes in higher-end new home building, like Greatwater Homes in East Village.
"But we're not seeing any mass movement toward increasing supply. ... We're not seeing any affordable [new homes]. A starter home, the numbers would never make sense for that," he says.
The bottom line: The city needs to make public resources available for both multifamily and single-family houses to satisfy the city's diverse needs around affordability, mobility, yard access, amenities and wealth creation, the report says.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Atlantic
6 hours ago
- Atlantic
Musk and Trump Still Agree on One Thing
Far be it from me to judge anyone enjoying the feud between Donald Trump and his benefactor Elon Musk over Trump's signature legislation, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But in the conflict between the president and the world's richest man, the public is the most likely loser. Four days ago, Musk described the bill as 'disgusting,' 'pork-filled,' and an 'abomination.' He also suggested that Trump was ungrateful, claiming that Republicans would have lost the 2024 election without all the money he had spent supporting GOP candidates. Trump fired back in a post on his network, Truth Social, saying, 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.' Musk then accused Trump of being in 'the Epstein files,' referring to the late financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, whom both men have ties to. Musk later deleted that post, as well as another calling for Trump's impeachment. If all this seems painfully stupid, it is, and it was all made possible by the erosion of American democracy. The underlying issues, however, are significant despite the surreal nature of the exchange. As it happens, Trump and Musk's dueling criticisms are each, in their own ways, at least partially valid. The bill is an abomination, although not because it's 'pork-filled.' And much of Musk's wealth does come from the federal government, which he has spent the past few months trying to dismantle while preserving his own subsidies. According to Axios, among other things, Musk was angry that the bill cuts the electric-vehicle tax credit, which will hurt the bottom line of his electric-car company, Tesla. But neither billionaire—one the president of the United States and the other a major financial benefactor to the president's party—opposes the bill for what makes it a monstrosity: that it redistributes taxpayer dollars to the richest people in the country by slashing benefits for the middle class, the poor, and everyone in between. The ability of a few wealthy people to manipulate the system to this extent—leaving two tycoons who possess the emotional register of toddlers with the power to impoverish most of the country, to their own benefit, speaks ill of the health of American democracy, regardless of the outcome. Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' would make the largest cuts to food assistance for the poor in history, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, eliminating $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at a time when inflation is still straining family budgets. Some 15 million Americans would become uninsured because of the bill's cuts to Medicaid, also the largest reductions to that program in history, and because of cuts to the Affordable Care Act. The CBPP estimates that about '22 million people, including 3 million small business owners and self-employed workers, will see their health coverage costs skyrocket or lose coverage altogether.' Not everyone would suffer, however, as the bill does offer significant tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America while adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. Whatever meager benefits there are to everyone else would likely be eaten up by the increase in the cost of food and health care caused by the benefit cuts. Charlie Warzel: The Super Bowl of internet beefs For all the insults flying between Trump and Musk, they are both fine with taking from those who have little and giving generously to those who have more than they could ever need. For years, commentators have talked about how Trump reshaped the Republican Party in the populist mold. Indeed, Trumpism has seen Republicans abandon many of their publicly held commitments. The GOP says it champions fiscal discipline while growing the debt at every opportunity. It talks about individual merit while endorsing discrimination against groups based on gender, race, national origin, and sexual orientation. It blathers about free speech while using state power to engage in the most sweeping national-censorship campaign since the Red Scare. Republicans warn us about the 'weaponization' of the legal system while seeking to prosecute critics for political crimes and deporting apparently innocent people to Gulags without a shred of due process. The GOP venerates Christianity while engaging in the kind of performative cruelty early Christians associated with paganism. It preaches family values while destroying families it refuses to recognize as such.
Axios
a day ago
- Axios
Republicans worry DOGE cuts will sink them in Virginia governor's race
Republicans are increasingly worried that budget cuts by Elon Musk 's DOGE could cost them dearly in November's vote for Virginia governor — an early electoral test of President Trump 's policies. Why it matters: Virginia has one of the highest percentages of federal employees in the country — more than 5% of the state's workforce by some estimates — and Republicans' internal polls are starting to show the damage from tens of thousands of federal layoffs. Zoom in: The University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center has projected that 32,000 jobs could be lost in the state this year, many of them federal positions. "Northern Virginia is filled with people who suffered the consequences of the DOGE cuts, and it's hard to see them being sympathetic to a Republican candidate who supports the DOGE cuts," said Whit Ayers, a veteran Republican pollster. "I suspect this will be an albatross around the neck of every Republican candidate this year," said Virginia Republican Bill Bolling, a former lieutenant governor. By the numbers: A private poll done for the campaign of a statewide Republican candidate suggested that just 39% of voters had a favorable view of DOGE. Nearly half of voters surveyed said they knew of someone impacted by the DOGE cuts, according to results shared with Axios. The poll showed Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears trailing former U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D) by single digits, outside the margin of error. Between the lines: DOGE could especially hurt Earle-Sears' campaign for governor in Northern Virginia and Norfolk, sections of the state where huge segments of the population are federal workers or have jobs tied to the government. Those areas played a role in Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's win in 2021, when he cut into Democratic margins and improved on the GOP's performance in 2017. (Virginia governors can't succeed themselves, so Youngkin isn't allowed to run again.) The D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia are home to upper- and middle-income voters, many of whom have ties to the government and are particularly likely to vote. Even non-federal workers in those areas could be impacted by DOGE, given the role federal funding plays in driving the local economy. Flashback: Republicans already are comparing DOGE's potential impact on Virginia's 2025 election to that of the GOP-led government shutdown of 2013, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of government workers being placed on unpaid leave. Democrats swept the state's highest offices that year — an outcome many GOP strategists blamed on the shutdown. "Washington, D.C., politics have long shaped the outcome of Virginia off-year elections," Virginia-based GOP strategist Jimmy Keady said in a text to Axios. "With over 230,000 Virginians working in or around the federal government, especially in Northern Virginia and Norfolk, any proposal that threatens those jobs — like DOGE — turns into a high-stakes issue," he added. The other side: Democrats are making DOGE a centerpiece of their election playbook. Virginia's Democratic Party has been running ads highlighting Earle-Sears' comments accusing the media of overhyping the impact of DOGE cuts. Other Democratic commercials are linking Republican state legislative candidates to Musk. Behind the scenes: Youngkin has taken steps to try to soften the blow to the state's federal workers, launching a " Virginia Has Jobs" initiative aimed at helping laid-off workers find new positions. Reality check: Republicans say Earle-Sears has an uphill climb, even without DOGE. In every election since 1977 besides one, the state has elected a governor from the opposition party to the sitting president. Top GOP officials — including some close to Trump — have criticized Earle-Sears and her campaign. Chris LaCivita, Trump's 2024 co-campaign manager and a longtime player in Virginia politics, has called her team " amateurs." What they're saying: Peyton Vogel, a spokesperson for Earle-Sears, rejected the notion that federal cutbacks could hurt the GOP candidate.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Trump Is Bleeding Hundreds of Millions Thanks to Musk's War
The explosion of Donald Trump's once-cozy friendship with Elon Musk is hitting them hard where it hurts most—in the pocketbook. As reported Thursday, Musk's personal fortune was cut by $26.6 billion after Tesla shares slumped by more than 14 percent, wiping a mind-boggling $150 billion off the EV giant's market value. But Trump isn't escaping unscathed. According to Axios, Trump Media & Technology Group stock declined 8 percent, while his MAGA-fueled $TRUMP cryptocurrency tumbled 12 percent—bleeding him of more than a billion dollars. The website reported that the 8 percent dip in Trump Media & Technology Group cost the president around $202 million. But he may be more concerned by the roughly 10 percent decline in the value of of his Official Trump meme coin, potentially costing him nearly $900 million. As Axios noted: 'Both men got to vent their frustrations publicly, and it only cost them about $21 billion.' The dramatic split was triggered when Musk, having departed his DOGE post on May 30, torched Trump's so-called 'One Big Beautiful Bill'—a sprawling tax-and-spending package—as a 'disgusting abomination.' Musk, who had personally poured nearly $300 million into Republican campaigns in 2024, tweeted: 'Without me, Trump would have lost.' After an uncharacteristic delay, Trump hit back—threatening to strip federal contracts from Musk's companies, which would kill electric vehicle tax credits and cost Tesla $1.2 billion this year, according to JPMorgan analysts. Musk then pressed the nuclear button by alleging Trump's name appears in sealed legal files on the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. He also called for Trump's impeachment, responding 'yes' to a user on X who wrote: 'Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.' However, a truce may be on the horizon, as Trump and Musk are expected to speak in person on Friday, according to Politico's White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns. Perhaps, as the old adage goes, money really does talk.
