A few posts ago, I suggested that sale prices of houses in Ypsilanti are starting to swing up over the last few months. How about the other popular metric of the housing market--the foreclosures?

Foreclosure activity, as we expect, is a downward force on home values, because the bank-owned homes dumped on the market soak up buyers. Over the last few years, from city assessing records, we can see that bank sales in the city go for half or a third the price of private sales:

With average MLS sale prices bumping along at $80,000 during that entire two year period, we can see that it was the bank sales dragging down the price. Fewer foreclosures means fewer bank-owned homes glutting the market, meaning prices can start recovering. Fortunately, Ypsi (the city, at least) is on the right side of that curve.

Last week, as part of the 3rd now-annual Ypsilanti City-wide Open House, I toured about 15 houses for sale around town. The only ones that might make me wish to "upgrade" all cost now at least what we paid for our house in mid-2006, which I colloquially refer to as "the peak of the market" in our neighborhood. This made me feel pretty good about my house, but, in combination with the latest discussions of the city budget, made me wonder where the market is at.

The Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors handily provides monthly market reports of MLS listings and sales, broken out by school district. A little quick and dirty scraping and spreadsheeting later, and I can make a couple observations:

By the way, I'm guest blogging over at Concentrate again this week.

They must be desperate for content, but I won't complain - if they want to read it, I'll write it.

It is my distinct pleasure, as Best Customer Ever As Of 11/13/2008, to tell you about Beezy's Cafe, which opened this week at 20 N. Washington Street in downtown Ypsi.

Check out the "It's not time lapse photography, they really did open that fast," photojournal of the night before Day 1.

Marvel at the hottest new floorboards in town. (Not to mention the hottest new floorboard-laying-machine in town!)

Yesterday, after seeing the News' article about one of our area poly-political families, I decided that the Arborwiki page on Al Wheeler needed a little attention. In the course of googling up additional sources, I stumbled on a paper on affordable housing and homelessness advocacy in Ann Arbor in the 1970s and '80s.

Having missed last week's opening day of the Downtown Ypsilanti Farmers' Market, I pushed my lunch back to two today, when the market opens, to see what they had. I was therefore ravenous on getting there, but someone from an office in the Key Bank Building was circulating with leftover sandwiches from a meeting! Thus fortified, I was able to go about my shopping.

...would be a wind farm along the freeway.

But it looks like Wyandotte's going to beat Ypsi to it, with $2m(!) in federal grants lined up for the first turbine of five.

Eventually, the Wireless Washtenaw project aims to network the entire County, intending to "provide an economic development tool", "attract and retain young professionals", and "reduce the digital divide". Eventually.

In the meantime, Wireless Ypsi is forging ahead, thanks to some of the usual suspects. As stated in the Ann Arbor News,

"Most of the time, when you don't have institutional involvement, things happen much quicker," Robb said. "We didn't need committees, we didn't need an advisory board, we didn't need anything. ... Seriously, in three weeks, we've done what (Wireless Washtenaw has) promised to do for four years."

The Fair Trade Zone, a worker-owned cooperative clothing factory in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua, is apparently in danger of losing their land to a sketchy land grab. They're asking that letters of support be sent to Nicaragua's first lady in order to add political support to their legal case.

Check out the local angle: The Fair Trade Zone sews clothing for none other than Ypsilanti's own Maggie's Organics. If you've got a Maggie's t-shirt (an option for printing at Ypsilanti's own VG Kids, you've got a product of this Nicaraguan co-op. (Assuming the letter-writing campaign has any effect at all,) It seems to me that Ypsilantians can be more effective than the average American by pointing out how proud we are to be able to claim a connection to one of Central America's most progressive exports.

The request for help (sample letters in comments so my RSS readers don't kill me):

Recently, the Ypsi Food Co-op has made some small rearrangement between every time I've been in, seeking ever more efficient utilization of their space. The most recent rearrangement, though, was to accommodate an entirely new category of product.

Yes, boys and girls, my food co-op has a liquor license, and are carrying various local and/or organic beers and wines - at no higher cost than my corner liquor store. Woot. The selection's not huge, but as long as they're carrying Bell's, they're doing one better than Chicago. (Ha ha, Dale. Ha ha.)