10 cities with collapsing home prices

How do insurance companies justify raising your insurance premiums to cover your home for a lesser value? Our flood insurance went up $1500 but our home value went down $150,000 due to the housing market. I think we are getting robbed!!

What these articles fail to touch upon is the difference in real estate driven by investors and real estate driven by home buyers.

I am in the process of buying a home in the No. 1. on this list (hah). If you're blessed with a really good job like I am, then it's an ideal place to drop roots and live in south east Michigan. Ann Arbor, Detroit, Royal Oak, everything is around you. Your employment prospects are also highest since you're at the dead center of everything.

SE Michigan is really building up its white collar atmosphere to compliment it's blue collar heritage (amongst the strongest in the nation.)

Detroits been working many years now on it's image problem. Has a lot of work cut out for it yet too. Really sad when there was nothing holding bad decision making accountable.

The big problem is getting the right people here. I actually gave up working on the East/West coasts because I wanted to come back during one of the worst times and really contribute. Maybe I'm the only guy, who knows.  However, I took work here in Michigan for more money than I was making in Boston and now enjoy a cost of living that's a third. The home I'm buying? God knows how much that would fetch in overcrowded new england, but here... I'll have it paid off and upgraded in 5 years tops.

How many young folk like me wouldn't kill at the opportunity to raise a family, build a career, and live life at a reasonable cost? One that we not only can afford, but put to good use.

I made a big bet with myself when I decided to come back. A year later and that decision has paid off ridiculously. Not to mention with the way things are going, I cannot wait to purchase lake-front property and set up a vacation home. After a memorial day of four-wheeling, wake-boarding, boat riding, canooing, on and on at a friends get-away. Oh why more people don't do this... I've no clue.

There's a growing number of people out there just like me. Young and successful who have been essentially sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right moment or preparing to make the next move in our lives. Given the calamity of what is collectively known as the "Baby Boomers Screw Up", we're for the most part extra-cautious when it comes to how and where we participate.

I can tell you that we talk amongst each other like no generation before us has (thanks social media).

The end.