Eminem's former Detroit home up for auction

Tammy Stables Battaglia | Detroit Free Press

DETROIT -- One of music megastar Eminem's childhood homes is for sale, a boarded-up bungalow just south of Eight Mile Road on Detroit's east side.

The house at 19946 Dresden, which was pictured on the cover of his 2000 release, The Marshall Mathers LP, sits vacant. The minimum bid for the property is $1.

The house is owned by the Michigan Land Bank, a government program operated by the state that manages vacant properties, including 11,000 vacant properties in Detroit.

According to public records, Deborah Mathers bought the house in 1987 for $19,900, agreeing to pay the couple who owned it $3,000 down and $220 a month. In 1994, the couple issued a deed to Mathers, who on the same day signed the deed over to Ann Investment. The property changed hands about 10 times before the Wayne County Treasurer's Office foreclosed for non-payment of taxes in 2001. A company listed as EM & UU Properties bought the house for $1 in 2009.

Michigan Land Bank Executive Director Kim Homan said the home is one of 4,000 addresses the Land Bank received last year from the Wayne County Treasurer's Office after the addresses failed to sell for a minimum bid of $500 at auction. The website Zillow.com lists the 767-square-foot bungalow's worth at $32,675.

"In a case like this, if the property is blighted, or the whole neighborhood is blighted, it would be unusual to get a buyer," Homan said. "Nobody knew it was Eminem's home, either."