How to Buy A Neighborhood Lot in Detroit for $250
The Detroit Land Bank Authority started the Neighborhood Lot Program in October 2020. Previously, the city only offered a Side Lot Program, which enabled residents to purchase vacant lots next to their homes.
The Neighborhood Lot Program enables residents to purchase vacant lots in their neighborhood, as long as they are within 500 feet of their home and owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority. However, residents have to jump through a few hoops to make this process run smoothly.
Preparation To Buy A Vacant Lot in Detroit
Before looking at what lots are available in your neighborhood, ensure the following:
Your taxes are up to date
You can ensure you are current on taxes on Wayne County’s Property Tax Listing System.
The address located within 500 feet of the lot is your primary residence.
Just because you live somewhere doesn’t mean that it’s your primary residence. Changing your address with the state is easy, and you’ll need to prove that you live there to receive the lot.
Your property is homesteaded with a PRE
Homesteading a property means that you’ve filed a Principal Residence Exemption (PRE) for your home. In this instance, for the property where you live (which is within 500 feet of the lot you’re trying to purchase). You can only have one homesteaded property at once, and you’ll pay lower taxes on a homesteaded property. Changing your homestead is easy, but it takes time and a visit to the tax office.
If you don’t have this, you can use a state-issued ID with the address on the property AND a recorded deed that shows your name as the owner.
After you’ve ensured that your taxes are up to date, your primary address is correct, and you’ve filed a PRE with the tax office, you’re ready to see what vacant lots are available near your home.
Finding A Vacant Lot in Detroit
The quickest way to do this is to use the Neighborhood Lot Sales page on the Detroit Land Bank Authority, but not all available lots are always shown, which can be confusing.
To start, enter your home address into the search bar on the page and see what comes up. If your property has two addresses, try both, as only one may work for this search.
If you find the lot you’re trying to buy quickly, jump to the application section.
If the lots you want to purchase aren’t listed, you can do a few things.
First, type your neighbor’s address into the system to see if the parcels come up for that address. Some users have noted glitches in the system, especially for multi-family dwellings, that stop their addresses from pulling up any lots. If you use your neighbor’s address and the lots you seek (that are within 500 feet of your home) come up, email the Detroit Land Bank Authority to inform them of the issue, and it should be fixed within a few days if there aren’t any other hangups.
If you still aren’t having luck, use the Detroit Parcel Viewer to ensure the Detroit Land Bank Authority owns the lot. Finding the address of a vacant lot can be challenging, so the easiest way to do this is to enter your address on the parcel viewer and click around from there to find the vacant lot in question. Information on the ownership of the side lot is on the left side of the screen.
If the Detroit Land Bank Authority indeed owns the lot, it might not be listed for a few reasons. Not all property owned by the land bank is listed in the Detroit Neighborhood Lot Sale System. Still, you can inquire about a specific property to see if it is available or be added to a list to get notified if the property is added in the future. Additionally, sometimes properties are supposed to be listed but aren’t, and if you email the Detroit Land Bank Authority, it’ll be added if that’s the case.
If you’ve done all that and are still left without answers, you can contact the Land Bank for some reprieve. In my experience, keep your questions short but detailed to get an answer you’ll be happy with.
Reminder: You can only purchase two lots per calendar year, so choose wisely!
Applying To Purchase A Vacant Lot in Detroit
If you’ve done everything above, this step is pretty simple.
To apply, you must create an account on the Detroit Land Bank Authority’s website. When doing so, ensure you add your address information correctly, as this can cause issues with the application process.
Once you’ve reached the application, some information will be filled out based on your account, and most of the upper section will be basic contact information.
The form will ask what you plan to do with the property—be honest, but don’t promise to make sweeping changes. You must follow the City of Detroit’s rules and regulations for three years. Otherwise, the Detroit Land Bank Authority can take the property back. A few buzzwords are that you’ll keep the property clean and prevent illegal dumping, which you should do.
After you submit the form, you’ll receive two emails. One informs you that you’ve applied to purchase a vacant lot, and the other has follow-up steps.
Getting a Neighborhood Lot Endorsement
To purchase a neighborhood lot in Detroit, you must get a Neighborhood Lot Endorsement. Essentially, a local nonprofit, community group, city councilperson, or district manager has to sign off on you purchasing the lot.
This sounds daunting, but most groups or individuals are willing to help. In my experience, I sent out a few emails but had the most luck calling the District 5 Manager and talking for a few minutes. By the end of the call, he had endorsed the neighborhood lots for me, and we were on our way. Ideally, you’ll be able to contact one of the endorsers and be ready to go.
The Detroit Land Bank Authority email will include the approvers for your neighborhood and their email addresses. I was able to find the district manager’s phone number through a quick search online.
The Waiting Game
After you’ve received your Neighborhood Lot Endorsement, you have to wait. There’s no notification from the Land Bank that you got the endorsement, which can be frustrating if you get anxious about whether all your ducks are in a row. If you call the Detroit Land Bank customer service line, they can tell you whether or not the endorsement has gone through.
Once your Neighborhood Lot Endorsement has been filed, the Detroit Land Bank Authority waits 10 days before reviewing your eligibility for the property. Though 10 days is the minimum, it’ll likely be longer than that. When we applied, it was around a month.
If more than one eligible neighbor applies for a property and receives a Neighborhood Lot Endorsement, the property closer to the vacant lot is preferred. If the homes are an equal distance away, whoever applied first gets the lot.
Eligibility Issues
After the Detroit Land Bank has reviewed your application, there’s a chance that they’ll tell you you aren’t eligible. When we applied, they told us that we hadn’t filed a PRE (we had) and we needed to submit other proof that this was our home. At this point, they’ll ask for a valid ID card and deed with your name and address. Because we had it, we also submitted the PRE form that we already had. The DLBA gives you a few days to submit these documents online or in person.
At this point, you’ll be assigned an employee from the DLBA for each lot you’re applying for, which can be confusing if you get a different employee for each lot, like we did. If you can get through to your employee, they’re very helpful, but we struggled to get them to answer the phone or reply to our voicemails. It appears that the office is understaffed.
After submitting the documents via email, I called the general customer service line to ask whether they had received the documents, as I was having no luck reaching our assigned employees. They verified that they received the documents, and I got an email confirmation for both parcels. This is important because if you don’t submit the documents on time (or they get lost in the shuffle), you have to start the whole process again.
Once the documents have been submitted, it’s time to play the waiting game again.
Success (or failure)
After you submit your documents, you’ll receive a series of emails. First, you’ll receive an email stating that your application has been marked as eligible if all your paperwork from previous steps is in order.
If everything is in order, you’ll get two emails in quick succession confirming that your application was approved and with a receipt for the property.
At the time of writing, neighborhood lots cost $250 per lot. When you first submit for the lot, you'll submit a payment method, so ensure it’s one that’ll still be intact in a few weeks to avoid getting bogged down at this step because your card has expired.
The email with the application approval will give you further steps, but you’ll again be playing the waiting game, as they have 30 days to send you the quitclaim deed.
Getting A Quitclaim Deed
For our neighborhood lot purchase, it took 14 days, or 9 business days, between receiving the email that we had successfully purchased the lot and receiving the quitclaim deed from the Detroit Land Bank.
When you receive this document, scan it closely to ensure all the information is correct. We purchased two neighborhood lots, and one of the documents had everything right, while the other misspelled my partner’s name. If there are any issues, call the Detroit Land Bank Customer Service Line, and they will file an inquiry. We’re still going through this process, but you can continue on your neighborhood lot journey while this is happening.
From the date you got the quitclaim deeds, you have 45 days to file a Property Transfer Affidavit. We did this at the Coleman A Young Municipal Center’s Detroit Taxpayer Service Center, which was easy. For our situation, we filed a Property Transfer Affidavit with the wrong name, and we’ll file an amendment once the Land Bank sends us a corrected deed.
Your New Neighborhood Lot
Once you’ve submitted the Property Transfer Affidavit, you’re done! Congratulations on your new property.
There are two payments you have to stay on top of to ensure that your vacant lots are by the book. First, you have to pay property taxes on this land. Second, you have to pay drainage fees to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. If the land is all grass, this should be minimal. If there are any impenetrable surfaces (think concrete), it’ll cost more.
The City of Detroit will likely still cut the grass for a few months (they often don’t have an updated list of what they own and what they don’t), but it’s on you to ensure the lots are up-kept to avoid blight tickets.
Enjoy!
