So, Metro Detroiters... where to buy around Novi/Farmington Hills?

For those that did not know I am no longer working as a VW service writer in Lansing. I wasn't given a reason for the termination, but that made it easier to get unemployment. A week ago I was contacted by the VW Fixed Ops Manager (VW Rep) about the possibility of going to work for one of his other dealers. I had an interview with the Service Director for Suburban Imports yesterday and was offered a job in their Farmington Hills location on the spot. It is a higher position than my last one, with a larger pay check and a longer drive. I feel blessed that my friends and peers are willing to look out for me in times like these, I guess what comes around does indeed go around if you are patient.

While the 75 mile drive does not bother me terribly I know eventually I will want to reduce the drive. I have access to a similar house in Clarkston to what I have now but I will want a home with a 4th bedroom and a garage with pole barn if possible. The dealership is between Farmington Hills and Novi on Grand River near the 5. Where should I start my search for SUB $100K properties that might fit my bill?

I have started searching Trulia and Zillow for pricing, but where should I avoid and where should I look?

I lived in South Lyon (west of Novi) for a number of years, decent little burg, I'm sure you could find a nice house in town at that price range.

I wondered what the outcome was, because I hadn't seen a reply yet on FB.

I just updated a little while ago. It was a REAL interesting conversation.

JFX001 wrote: I lived in South Lyon (west of Novi) for a number of years, decent little burg, I'm sure you could find a nice house in town at that price range. I wondered what the outcome was, because I hadn't seen a reply yet on FB.

I was going to suggest the same thing- countryside, decent schools (AFAIK), seems like a good area.

The big problem is you still have to deal with I96.

I had friends who lived in Northville for a while, and they liked that area a lot, too.

Maybe the area inbetween Northville and South Lyon? You need to find a old farmhouse, so you can have a place to ignore your many projects...

Try New Hudson. Commerce Twp is north of the dealer, at the top of the 5. That's where I just bought a place. Try Wixom and Walled lake too. Just get out a map, draw a circle and start hunting. Farmington hills is nice but pricey. Wach out for the taxes! (Novi too) A round of phone calls to all the cities building/planning depts will give you the lowdown on garage sizes vs lot size etc. Commerce is pretty garage friendly. Don't know about FH. New Hudson, South Lyon and Brighton are more farm countryish, should be easy there. maybe even Webberville if you don't mind a drive. Watch the traffic on 96, it can be a real motherberkleyer, the 275 interchange really gets bad. (thats right in front of your new work place...) try moveinmichigan.com

No help to you, just a hearty congrats mate

alfadriver wrote:

JFX001 wrote: I lived in South Lyon (west of Novi) for a number of years, decent little burg, I'm sure you could find a nice house in town at that price range. I wondered what the outcome was, because I hadn't seen a reply yet on FB.

I was going to suggest the same thing- countryside, decent schools (AFAIK), seems like a good area. The big problem is you still have to deal with I96. I had friends who lived in Northville for a while, and they liked that area a lot, too. Maybe the area inbetween Northville and South Lyon? You need to find a old farmhouse, so you can have a place to ignore your many projects...

10 mile is a straight shot (20-25 minutes?). I haven't been there in a while, I've heard that it's grown up quite a bit.Maybe they have gotten around to paving some of the roads....

Outside of the obvious (city V. country) is there anything terrible about Livonia? Southfield?

Livonia, Wayne County
Southfiled, Oakland County.

Personally, I think I would avoid Wayne County if possible.
The City of Detroit is an incredible drain on the county.
This map shows the details of the county border. http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/maps/map-of-Wayne-County-Michigan.htm

Major congrats!

I am 74 miles door to door. How hard is it on the second half of the day getting home? I will be arriving in FH at 6:30am but leaving around 6:00pm. With the current construction on the 5 at 696/96 all screwed up I will have to take Grand River out into Novi to get home as it is.

I used to make the trek many times a week from Toledo to Southfiled for years. My personal philosophy was that if I had not left the Southfield office by 4:00 then I was better just working later and leaving at 6:30.
Not quite the same as your trip but the logic may apply.
Of course, that was 1998 thru '03

look in the older parts of livonia and redford, but don't go East of Beech Daly in Redford. sub-$100k will not get you enough land for a pole barn, and you won't have time to use it anyway.

westland could be another option.

if you want that kind of bargain in Oakland County, you're talking about Pontiac and that's a berkeleying ghetto that you should stay out of.

I know I will never use the pole barn. It is for my live in contractor/father in law. He will be in my fourth room and to pay rent he gets to refinish my house. There are a few very nice deals in the 70's in the north of Southfield near Berkley, as well as on just east of the Livonia Shopping Center that is pretty neat.

North end of Southfield near Berkley is actually kinda nice. Anywhere west or north of the new place of employment should be just fine too. Congrats on the better work. I actually picked up my current DD through Suburban.

I'll sell you my house in Novi, but it's more than double your budget. When we moved here in 2005, we rented in New Hudson. It was nice, although the water had lots of rust in it. I like South Lyon, too. You can get to work by driving down 10 Mile--it's a relatively quick jaunt, and you'll miss I96 (which is improving).

My neighbor is a Mazda tech at this dealership. From what I can tell, he likes his job.

John, I've been browsing to see if I could dump my place (and the mortgage) and move to a country location for $100-150K. I use the search feature on the Realestateone.com site and get lot's of choice. I've lived west of US23 for over a decade. Farmington Hills is NE of where I worked, but I found that westbound M14 generally moved better than I-96 during the evening rush hour. After I got the Miata I just took two lanes all the way from Plymouth to Dexter. No quicker, but much more pleasant. See the answer is always "Miata:".

racinginc215 wrote: Southfield is great if you like shootings and losing your car and finding deep south of 8 mile. Don't know much about Livonia but a buddy of mine was a Southfield cop for 30 years. his opinion is you may as well move to Detroit. try Webberville, Pickney, South Lyon, then up 23 south of Heartland. Webberville is home of Michigan brewing too so you have an exellent brew pub with Celis on tap and a home brew shop. The joke at work is I live over 70 miles from work and it takes me right under an hour to get to work I have friends that live Milford Commerce Novi that are 30 miles from work and it takes them over an hour to get to work. They pay about 5 times the taxes I do on postage size lots. and less services.

I have to call BS on this in a large part. Great job damning a city of 26 square miles and 80,000 people just because a couple of blocks on it's Southern edge butts up against Detroit.

I live in Beverly Hills, sandwiched between the North East side of Southfield and Birmingham. My brother in law, my daughters boyfriend and several other friends live in Southfield and there are absolutely no problems living there what so ever. The North part of Southfield is in the Birmingham school district which is one of not just the best school districts in the state, but in the whole country. The Southfield school district is well respected in it's own right too. Yes, there are some issues on the south side, but as a whole Southfield is a great place to live. In the city you also have Lawrence tech and Oakland Community collage and one of the best public libraries I've ever seen.

If you look at the actual crime statistics Southfield is slightly higher than South Lyon, but still well below the National average. Head North to me or East to Berkley and it drops to almost non existent and way lower than South Lyon.

One thing that I think is really nice about Birmingham, Beverly Hills, Berkley, Royal Oak, Southfield, Farmington (not hills) etc is that they have real character that to me, is completely lacking in Novi, Farmington Hills etc. which feel to me to just be an endless series of anonymous generic subdivisions.

But to the O.P. this is a useless post as it's outside your intend price range and you wont' get much land or outbuildings.

John Here's what I would suggest.

Find a factory that has 5-6 acres of parking lot. Tear down building, build nice house, take .25 acres to plant grass and a garden. Something nice, like roses.

And let us use the rest for autocrossing.

Or if you can find 20 acres, we can build a track!

Eric

alfadriver wrote: John Here's what I would suggest. Find a factory that has 5-6 acres of parking lot. Tear down building, build nice house, take .25 acres to plant grass and a garden. Something nice, like roses. And let us use the rest for autocrossing. Or if you can find 20 acres, we can build a track! Eric

Well with 20 acres we could do both. Build it so the track is my "driveway" and have two seperate parking areas one near the timing tower (the place with the bedrooms and kitchen) and another larger one (say 1300x2500ft?) near the storage shed (the 45 bay art deco glass and polished cement shed).

Brilliant!

alfadriver wrote: Find a factory that has 5-6 acres of parking lot.

This is somewhat realistic. The Detroit area is an awesome place where a dollar goes a long way, if you go where people say you should not and if you are not tied to the idea of what a 'house' should look like. And of course what your family is comfortable with. Sub 100K is tough, but for 150K there should be any number of mixed use residential/commercial properties of >5k sq ft within just a few miles of FH. I would just follow the local streets under 696 going east and see what is for sale. Just don't get into details with your coworkers when you talk about doing some renovations to the new 'house', those things get lost in translation.

10036 people live in South Lyon, 78296 reside in Southfield for those keeping track.

LOL!

Kramer wrote: My neighbor is a Mazda tech at this dealership. From what I can tell, he likes his job.

Who is your neighbor? I am currently training with the Mazda guys and will be the Nissan Service Lane Manager when I am done training.

Steve Kerr--and not the basketball player. Tall, 20-something kid. Good guy.

racinginc215 wrote: I'll have to recall BS on your part. Unless your using some new Ninja math where 1041 Violent crimes equals 13. I'm not saying all of Southfield on a whole is a crappy place to live but sharing that border and Telegraph with Detroit is a poor mix. . As I recall he lives in Mason I'm sure the shock of driving 20 minutes to get from 12 and Telegraph to 10 and Telegraph would be interesting. Southfield crime Overall Southfield Crime Index 4645 Southfield Violent Crimes 1041 Southfield Murders 1 Southfield Rapes 36 Southfield Robberies 164 Southfield Aggravated Assaults 840 Southfield Property Crimes 3604 Southfield Burglaries 894 Southfield Larceny/Thefts 2003 Southfield Motor Vehicle Thefts 707 Southfield Arsons 1 3 South Lyon Overall South Lyon Crime Index 154 South Lyon Violent Crimes 13 South Lyon Murders 1 South Lyon Rapes 1 South Lyon Robberies 1 South Lyon Aggravated Assaults 10 South Lyon Property Crimes 141 South Lyon Burglaries 17 South Lyon Larceny/Thefts 122 South Lyon Motor Vehicle Thefts 2 South Lyon Arsons 1 3 I'd rather live in South Lyon. Now if your talking Lathrop Village or Franklin or Bingham Farms . and NONE of Southfield is in the Birmingham school district that would be the Village and Franklin in Birmingham.

OK, we're looking in different places. I got my quick and dirty stats from http://www.moving.com/real-estate/compare-cities/index.asp And again, those stats are heavily influenced by the boarder with Detroit. Most of Southfield is fine, especially the North and East side. On the North it boarders Franklin, Bingham Farms and Beverly Hills. Franklin is one of the very wealthiest communities in Michigan, do you really think that by crossing 13 mile you suddenly enter an area of murder, rape and crack houses? Southfield is a pretty big City, there are good areas and bad. On the whole it's a great and safe place with some troubles on it's Southern edge at 8 mile, but the whole 8 mile corridor is known to be an issue, get a couple of blocks away and it's fine.

And yes, the North part of Southfield IS in the Birmingham school district. My Niece lived in Southfield and went to Birmingham, My Daughters previous and current Boyfriends live in Southfield (she met then at Groves). Heck, my wife who's lived in Beverly Hills since 1972, her high school boyfriend, and best friend and other friends all lived in Southfield and went to Groves with her. Trust me, since I drop my daughter at Groves High school every day and know her friends, my own relatives and many of my wife's old friends I can 100% guarantee you that the North part of Southfield IS IN the Birmingham school district. I'll even bet a Miata on it if you like!!!!

As too traffic. I work in Dearborn and live in Beverly Hills, that means I drive through the full North South length of Southfield at minimum twice a day. Avoid Southfield road and take Evergreen instead and it moves just fine. My commute is 18 miles and takes about 30 mins in the morning. In the evening it takes closer to 40, but that's because of the Southfield freeway between Dearborn and the I96 exit and sometimes up to 8 mile, not Southfield itself.