A lot of the speculators are under the impression that Detroit's real estate market is hot, and that's why they're putting down money to buy in neighborhoods, hoping that development is happening. But it's not happening in these further out neighborhoods - so they're left with properties that don't have a lot of value, and they either rent them out in predatory schemes, or they just let them sit, and sell them to someone else who believes in this narrative of a hot real estate market.

Journalist Allie Gross surveys the chaos created by Detroit's speculative real estate market - turning tax-foreclosed homes into bundles of risk in a chaotic financial landscape, and emptying neighborhoods of people and families for a long-shot at profit for investor groups, often located far away from the damages of their actions.

Allie wrote the article Detroit real estate game creates chaos in neighborhoods for the Detroit Free Press.