Best Of

@Mt_Goat said:
How much does the new valuation increase the taxes? Or is there a break on that for being a historical property?

Thankfully the city's valuation is separate, but Detroit has had an issue with over-assessed tax bills for a while now. The only things that trigger them to reassess is the house being sold or a city-wide reassessment. We just had the latter for the first time in decades, and my bill went down ~10% (and they'd knocked ~5% off previously as part of a blanket re-calibration prior to the formal assessments being done).

@NiGHTS said:
600+% gainz bro

It's so complicated. The amount of money I'll have spent on the house by this fall is the same as the 80% usable value being extracted in the mortgage, so if you're balancing valuation against cost, I'm break even. On the other hand, how do you value the historic restoration-grade fixes being done and just living here? I dunno. I've got a helluva spreadsheet I'm gonna make some graphs out of some time soon.

Mortgage approved! And the appraisal came in at a very acceptable 320K.

On the docket for 2017:

• Reinstalling the stained glass window.
• Restoring 5 windows on the first floor / back stairs.
• Restoring 4 windows in the second floor turret area.
• Fixing 3 windows in the basement.
• Repairs to the original stone utility sink in the basement.
• General improvements to the laundry room.
• Repairs to exterior woodwork on the carriage house to stabilize the gutter.
• Replace the half bath vanity (was far too large) (done).
• Replace the tub faucet (was incorrect capacity) (done).
• Landscaping around the front porch (begun).
• Painting. Always painting.