Take a look at this CNN article about a Chinese firm with plans to build a “Chinese-style mega shopping mall” in Milwaukee.

“The cost of doing business there is very low,” Wu Li, president of Toward Group told CNN. “The people are friendly, the environment is peaceful and the pace of living is slow. It is a good place for Chinese enterprises to go abroad.”

The story explains Wu’s company recently purchased a dormant shopping complex in northwestern Milwaukee that was built in the 1970s, for $6 million. It will open the mall, renamed AmAsia, in August, according to CNN, part of a growing trend of Chinese investment in US real estate. That trend has mostly been in cities outside the Rust Belt –until now.

Author Alyssa Katz called on concerned individuals to play an active role in shaping new federal policies toward homeownership in a speech today at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs.

Katz, author of Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us, spoke as part of the CSU’s ongoing “Building Our Future Beyond Foreclosure” speaker series.
“History has handed this country and all of us this great tragedy and this great opportunity,” Katz said. “In the throes of this national trauma, the idea of community development really has to go …

As many young adults do, I recently took upon the endeavor of buying my very first home. I began my search after many years (almost ten) of renting apartment after apartment, and then renting an entire house. I always enjoyed the freedom that comes with renting. An apartment felt like an over extended stay in a hotel room, it really wasn’t my place to begin with, I just stayed there for a while-I can leave anytime I want, or that is, when my lease ends. After some time, I started to see and hear the value of ownership from friends who became proud home owners.

I began my search in Youngstown, focusing on both the North and south sides of the city.

By now, we’ve all seen these. Half-finished condominum complexes, shopping centers, homes, abandoned and left vulnerable to the elements.
The New York Times has catalogued some striking examples in a slide show called The Ruins of a Second Guilded Age.
“The sudden shift in the economy has unmasked such excess,” said photographer Edgar Martins.
Says Michael Olivares, a 30-year-0ld accountant who bought his Bakersfield Calfornia home for $410,000 in 2006, “We get a lot of tumbleweeds rolling through.”
Nine homes on his street have been foreclosed on this year.

This Slate piece was written by a Flint native returning to his hometown in search of affordable housing, driven out of San Fransisco by obscenly high housing costs.
It’s an interesting and well-written story.
Thanks to Rust Wire reader Claudia Raleigh for bringing it to my attention.
-KG

A Cleveland based for-profit company is looking to establish a “foreclosure clearinghouse” to deliver bank-owned properties to government entities and nonprofits.
ideastream in Cleveland reports REO Clearinghouse is planning to streamline the purchasing process for local agencies that have been endowed with stimulus money to address the housing crisis.

 
A friend of mine took me on a tour of the St. Clair-Superior Neighborhood on the near east side of Cleveland yesterday. This neighborhood is one of the hardest-hit by the housing crisis. Only about 10 percent of the housing is occupied. A local real estate investor has taken an interest in the neighborhood because of its low real estate prices and proximity to downtown and Lake Erie.
We began our tour at an east side park with a nice view of Lake Erie. A lot of people dock their boats …

 
A friend of mine took me on a tour of the St. Clair-Superior Neighborhood on the near east side of Cleveland yesterday. This neighborhood is one of the hardest-hit by the housing crisis. Only about 10 percent of the housing is occupied. A local real estate investor has taken an interest in the neighborhood because of its low real estate prices and proximity to downtown and Lake Erie.
We began our tour at an east side park with a nice view of Lake Erie. A lot of people dock their boats …

About 200 homes are on the market for absolutely nothing right now in metro Detroit, the Detroit News reports. Three Detroit-area homes are listed for $1. At $1,000, you can have your pick of another 200.
Real estate news doesn’t get much worse than this.
According to The News, more than half the homes sold in southeast Michigan last year, with the exception of St. Clair County, were in foreclosure. In St. Clair County, traditional sales beat foreclosures by one transaction.
In Detroit, the average sale price of a house is $7,000. Last week, …