Dandelion Dispatch #0243: Building Detroit
Battling blight with technology
To tackle Detroit’s blight issues, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan had an idea for an eBay-style auction website, where Detroiters could bid on unoccupied houses owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA). In April 2014, the city transferred more than 16,000 properties to the DLBA, which were then eligible to be auctioned off to new homeowners.
The mayor and his team believed the online auction concept had legs, but needed help fine tuning the plan, creating the custom technology, and rolling out a communications plan to spread the word. They approached Dandelion for help building and deploying the solution.
The Technology
In less than 45 days, Dandelion built a robust platform that allowed visitors to view available listings and place bids on the homes, ensuring that the back-end capabilities helped the Land Bank verify that the bids were legitimate and that the bidder met all of the requirements, including confirming residency in Michigan.
Dandelion integrated a payment portal into the platform, which is able to automatically charge a deposit to the winner’s credit card when the auction closes.
The Neighbors Wanted Campaign
The DLBA wanted to attract new residents to the unoccupied homes — individuals and families who were interested in living in the houses they would purchase. They didn’t want developers coming in and buying property just to flip it six months later.
Dandelion was charged with developing a message which communicated the home auction opportunity in a way that would appeal specifically to homeowners. It was also important to get the community on board, both to create a positive atmosphere and because neighbors could help provide new homeowners with resources and incentives they might be eligible to receive.
Dandelion developed a communications strategy focusing on the message “Neighbors Wanted.” The message was inclusive, and leveraged the fact that the homes up for auction were located in strong neighborhoods throughout the city, on blocks with a strong sense of community. The team designed billboards, posters and other collateral materials which were distributed around the city to promote the Building Detroit platform.
Within the first 60 days of its launch, Building Detroit achieve the following results:
$1,435,400 in home auctions
Average home price on BuildingDetroit.org: $22,000
Median home price in Detroit: $11,000
Estimated revenue per dollar spent with Dandelion: $30.54
Dandelion continues to manage the Building Detroit technology, working closely with the DLBA to build out new features and continuously improve user experience.
