Detroit, which is now making positive steps towards economic recovery following last year’s bankruptcy, is being urged to court Chinese investment to bring jobs and prosperity to the city.
The call comes from former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who this week addressed a meeting of Michigan business leaders.
He told them that, on overseas trade missions last year, he heard many negative questions about Detroit’s bankruptcy.
This year, he continued, one of the most common questions he heard was how to invest in the city.
If overseas investors choose to invest in Detroit’s commercial property market, they may find themselves able to do so via online auctions.
A number of downtown Detroit buildings have changed hands recently in this increasingly popular manner, it is reported.
The method of connecting buyers and sellers may have seemed non-traditional in the not-too-distant past, but it has resulted in some high-profile lots changing hands recently.
The internet auctions have sold at least four downtown and New Center properties in the past nine months.
And some have indeed attracted the attention of overseas investors, who are prepared to pay more for a Detroit property than local buyers.
Among lots recently offered in online auctions are the following.
Of course, it is not only in Detroit or the US where this method of buying and selling property is in operation, as the internet plays an increasingly prominent role in the global property market.
