For six months, three vacant houses and an empty plot of land sat on the market in Corktown awaiting a buyer. There had been a few suitors seriously interested, but none pulled the trigger.

Within a day of Crain's first reporting that Ford Motor Co. is pursuing a deal to buy and redevelop the dilapidated Michigan Central Station, broker James Tumey received several cash offers, even at the full $540,000 price, for the properties that look out on the 500,000-square-foot depot. And some of the potential buyers haven't even seen inside the homes.

And that's with no finished Ford deal in place.

If it happens, the aftershock for Corktown real estate owners and developers would be widespread. Assessed property values for both residential and commercial would rise. Apartment rents would move upward. Landlords for restaurants and retail space could command more money for space as the daytime worker population in Detroit's oldest neighborhood increased, patronizing more businesses along Michigan Avenue and off it west of downtown.

In short, if Corktown becomes Fordtown, the neighborhood would see a seismic shift.

"After this news, people are going crazy. They are buying just based off of Ford maybe coming in, throwing out offers on properties they haven't even seen," Tumey, a Corktown resident who is vice president for Farmington Hills-based Friedman Integrated Real Estate Solutions LLC, said.

Ford has neither confirmed nor denied Crain's original report about a pending Ford/Moroun family deal for the hulking depot. But thoughts of it coming into Corktown with, say, 1,000 employees has spawned something of a gold rush: Investors looking to get in before the Dearborn-based automotive giant makes its expected announcement, perhaps as soon as next month.

"We have generated a lot more activity, more conversations, more people talking," said Benji Rosenzweig, vice president of retail brokerage in the Southfield office of Colliers International Inc. He is marketing an L-shaped plot of North Corktown property on 14th and 15th streets on the north side of the West Fisher Freeway service drive for redevelopment.

There have been several large-scale redevelopment plans in the works for years, including Bloomfield Hills-based Larson Realty Group's proposal for The Corner, the site that once housed Tiger Stadium until it was razed starting in 2008. Anthony Soave is also building hundreds of apartments nearby in a development known as Elton Park. But those were in the works well before Ford began discussions with the Morouns.

And if Ford, which reported $156.8 billion in revenue last year, strikes a deal with billionaire trucking mogul Manuel "Matty" Moroun and his son, Matthew, expect more big projects along those lines, if not larger.

"If anything, I think it will expand the amount of buildings that are renovated and turned into condos, apartments, etc.," said Michael Colvin, a Corktown landlord who has an owned furnished loft condominium for rent nearby for $2,900 per month. "It will push out further where the mice go."