doingitfortheoutline

How much money have you paid in taxes and do you feel that you received adequate services for the money you spent?

EDIT: I'm asking this question because I had property in Detroit, probably paid over $60,000 in total and the only reliable service we had was trash. Grass would go uncut for months (we called it "murder high"), roads never got plowed when it snowed, and the one time we actually needed the fire department it took about an hour for them to get to the neighborhood and four houses burned down while we waited.

You cut your own property's grass like any other city. But in Detroit there are blocks of vacant lots that are owned by the city, the land bank, or private entities. Usually the contiguous empty lots are owned by the city. The city is responsible for maintaining its property, but it would not cut the grass. The grass would grow to 4 or 5 feet high, tall enough for a person to hide behind and murder someone.

I bought about 2 dozen properties between 2009-2013, you could easily purchase about 10 houses for $10,000 each. Contiguous lots/properties are harder to come by but you could get a few houses in a row for about $25,000 during that time.

$250 a quarter is pretty close to Detroit, I think I was paying like $90/month.

I don't think you can do it as cheaply anymore but depending on the size of the block it's still possible, probably an average of $15,000 to $20,000 per house, maybe more in nicer areas. Most things depend on the neighborhood, it could cost anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000.