By Alan Madlane
Well, here’s some of the best news for the city in quite some time.
At least, if you’re a property owner – or, thinking of becoming one soon.
According to Insurify, an insurance comparison shopping website, has named Hamtramck as its top up-and-coming city for the entire state, with regard to property values.
Congrats, Hamtramckans, that’s kind of a big deal.
Factors driving the nation’s surprisingly robust real estate market during the coronavirus pandemic include some wanting to move out of urban centers for safety-related reasons, and others now working more from home, who either desire more workspace, or who no longer care as much about being close to their jobs.
Insurify’s cutoff was for cities with a population over 1,500. Using the real estate website Zillow for their research, they created an algorithm that consolidated several factors: Change in home values from 2010 to 2020; monthly trends in housing value from last year to this one; monthly trend in sales volumes for last year and this; and Zillow’s 2021 predictive forecast.
The poll plunks Hamtramck in the midst of other cities both well-known (Richmond, Virginia; Trenton, New Jersey), historically pricey (Provincetown, Rhode Island), relatively obscure (Joplin, Missouri; Pigeon Forge, Tennessee) or truly obscure (Caldwell, Idaho, anyone? Ludlow, Kentucky?).
In fact, most of the towns on this list, you’ve likely never heard of.
Of course, Hamtramck’s had its brushes with fame before. One need only recall the infamous Rolling Stone Magazine article of yore, proclaiming Hamtramck a burgeoning hipster heaven in the heady days of Motor Lounge and the world-renowned techno music scene.
But this one feels a little more substantial, based as it is on data and trends. Of course, much can happen between now and that glorious prediction coming to fruition.
And that trend of people exiting urban areas would seem to portend an opposite fate, but hey. Let’s look on the bright side.
We could all stand a bright side right now.
Posted Aug. 14, 2020
Phillip Kwik
August 15, 2020 at 9:21 am
It was not Rolling Stone that named Hamtramck one of the country’s hippest cities. It was the Utne Reader.
Freddiehenry
August 16, 2020 at 8:43 am
Freddie Henry 2013 at gmail.com I’ve been looking for a 2-bedroom house in Hamtramck between 7 and 800 and I cannot find one
Hamtramckan
August 16, 2020 at 10:19 am
guess the article wasn’t as famous as thought considering the author didn’t remember it correctly.
Guest
August 16, 2020 at 3:47 pm
https://www.thecentersquare.com/michigan/hamtramck-ranks-the-poorest-of-michigan-towns-study-finds/article_0652db46-dcb7-11ea-bcd6-6f8ef921c688.html
Resident
August 16, 2020 at 11:23 pm
From the above chart, at 49.1% poverty rate, we are the poorest city in the nation.
Time for a new slogan: “The Poorest, but proudly the richest”.