How a Hoya is Getting the Detroit Housing Market Back Online
In smaller cities, people are more able to see and feel the impact that they are making.
Laura, currently the Vice President of Strategic Investments at Quicken Loans Family of companies, did not graduate college knowing exactly what she wanted but she knew she wanted to make an impact. Today, only 4 years out of college, Laura works every day to get the housing market in the Detroit metro area back online. Although downtown is almost at 100% capacity, it is areas that address the blighted houses throughout town that need to be stressed. One project she has is Rehab and Ready. This program is with the landbank and works to rehab the houses that can be rehabbed.
What this work does is that it helps create comparables in a market that has almost none. In order for a real estate market to function, there need to be houses that have sold to compare the house price to. Without houses selling there are no comparables. In a lot of the areas around Detroit, this is often the case. By rehabbing houses that sell, the effort is creating comparables to get the housing market back on line.
Although many young people Laura’s age are often the ones doing the research and information gathering for such a large project, it is Laura’s job to execute the vision on projects like Ready to Rehab and much more.
I asked Laura when she was most excited.
Laura responded “The times that I am most excited are like two weeks ago. We launched a program two weeks ago that allowed us to help 80 tax occupied properties that were foreclosed or about to be foreclosed on. This gave people the opportunity to live in the houses that they have always lived in.”
Laura is a part of the solution in Detroit and it all began with getting back to what she wanted—which was to make an impact in an area that was meaningful for her family and her roots.
This is an excerpt from my book, Millenials and the Resurgence of the American City. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you want to connect, you can reach me here via email gkim9779@gmail.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Also, you can find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KPCBJDR
