After a bargain? Own a three bedroom home in Detroit for JUST $500...as the city is revealed to have the cheapest housing in the U.S



In cities such as New York and San Francisco $500 might cover your monthly rent whereas in Detroit the same amount can buy you a detached three bedroom house.

New research has revealed the drastic differences in costs of buying property in different cities in the country - and shown that Michigan's largest city has the most affordable homes by a considerable margin.



Detroit, famed as a one-time industrial city, has the lowest real estate prices per square foot in the U.S while San Francisco has the highest.



Great value: This 749 Square foot home costs only $500 - and boasts three bedrooms to boot

Bargain: This two bedroom, one bathroom home in Detroit is on the market for $500

Charming: For only $3,000 this four bedroom, two bathroom Detroit house is yours

In Detroit one square foot of property will set the buyer back by $62.45 whereas in San Francisco the average cost per square foot is $420.99.

Struggling for decades Michigan's largest city was hit hard by the recession which caused housing prices to plummet by 54.9 per cent.



America’s fifth largest city just 50 years ago with 1.85 million people but now Detroit ranks as the eleventh with a population of approximately 700,000 people.



Investment: This pretty bungalow spread over 692 square foot costs a bargain $2,500

Boarded up: Detroit has the most affordable homes in the country - this three bedroom house is on sale for $3,000

For Sale: This three bedroom detached bungalow in the Motor City will set buyers back $3,000

However, incredibly cheap housing prices could attract people to the Motor City as a study by Realtor.com showed that of 146 cities only Chicago has more searches for property than Detroit, according to Wall Street 24/7 .

The median list price for a property in Detroit was $84,900 - $13,000 less than any other city in America.



In its glory days the Michigan city was the centre of America’s booming car industry but has been stuck in decline for decades.



Unsurprisingly, in the cities with lowest costs per square foot, which also include other former industrial cities Toledo and Wichita, residents have lower average incomes.



The two cities with the next most affordable property were Fort Wayne in Indianapolis and Toledo in Ohio.

What a steal: $500 will get you this home in Detroit which boasts two bedrooms, one bathroom, a garage and a basement

Cheap: In Detroit one square foot of property costs $62.45 whereas in San Francisco the average cost per square foot is $420.99 - this home costs $2,000

Property costs in Fort Wayne are the second lowest at $66.03 per square foot while in Toledo, where poverty and unemployment are incredibly high, they are $67.02.



On the other end of the spectrum the least affordable homes are found in San Francisco where the median list price is a staggering $611,700, after increasing by 3.77 per cent between January and February, the data found.



Property is similarly expensive in the Hawaiian capital of Honolulu where the price per square foot is $381.03 and in Washington, D.C where the figure is £372.11.



Last month foreclosures throughout the country fell to their lowest levels in five years however the number of homes that received foreclosure notices for the first time rose by seven per cent from February.

SALES OF NEW HOMES DROPPED TO LOWEST IN MORE THAN A YEAR IN MARCH

Sales of new homes fell in March by the largest amount in more than a year, indicating that the U.S. housing market remains under strain despite some modest signs of improvement.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that sales dropped 7.1 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000 units. That followed a 7.3 percent increase in sales in February. This figure was revised up from an initial estimate that February sales had fallen 1.6 percent.

The weakness in March could reflect that a warmer-than-normal winter caused sales that normally occur at the start of the spring sales season in March to occur in February instead.

The median sales price was $234,500 in March, down 1 percent from the February price.

Sales of new homes stand at just about half the roughly 700,000-a-year pace that analysts consider evidence of a healthy market.

The supply of unsold new homes fell to just 144,000 in March – the fewest on records dating to 1963. The supply has been falling over the past two years as builders have cut back on construction.

Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Research, said the low inventory level should trigger a moderate pickup in housing construction in coming months and provide some support to the economy.

Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes fell 2.6 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.48 million units. For previously owned homes, economists consider a healthy annual sales rate to be roughly 6 million.

The sales declines in March were led by a 27 percent drop in the West. Sales in the Midwest fell 20 percent. New-home sales rose 7.7 percent in the Northeast and 3.1 percent in the South.

A separate report on home prices showed that home prices dropped in February in most major U.S. cities for a sixth straight month. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index shows that prices dropped in February from January in 16 of the 20 cities it tracks.

Though new homes represent less than 10 percent of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to statistics compiled by the Realtors.

A key reason for weak sales in the new-home market is that builders must compete with foreclosures and short sales. (Short sales occur when lenders allow homes to be sold for less than what's owed on the mortgage.)

About half of the states reported sharp increases in foreclosure activity in February. The pace of foreclosures is rising now that states have reached settlements with the nation's five biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses.

Builders have stopped working on many projects because it's been hard to get financing and to compete with cheaper resale homes.







