Real Estate Investing:Some mixed news for Detroit housing

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When you think of cities that are suffering during the recession, it’s impossible to omit Detroit.

There’s the obvious struggles of the auto industry, which for so long has been associated with this Michigan. Then there’s the fact that the state of Michigan, with its unemployment rate at 12.6 percent in March, now has the highest jobless rate in the country.

But homesellers received some good news in the Motor City this week, as the Detroit News reported that home sales in April rose again. That marks the fourth consecutive month that housing sales have shown an increase. Sales of single-family homes and condominiums rose 27.5 percent this April when compared to the same month one year earlier, according to the Detroit News story.

At the same time, the average days on the market for a housing unit in the Detroit metro area fell to 123 days. That’s one day less than in April of 2008.

Of course, this being Detroit, it’s not all good real estate news. The median sales price of homes and condos in the Metro Detroit area fell to ,625. That’s a drop of 51.1 percent from April of 2008.

The reason for the price drop is obvious: the incredibly high number of housing foreclosures in the city of Detroit.

Detroit, despite the gain in home sales, is still struggling mightily. I’ve only visited the city a few times, but I have to say, downtown Detroit is a pretty depressing place. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope there. The suburbs are nice, I hear. But in the Detroit Metro area itself? You can get the median-value house here for under ,000. If that doesn’t tell you how depressed the local real estate market here is, nothing will.