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Get Flash Player Faced with sky-rocketing real estate costs in China, a recent CCTV report about the availability of houses in my birthplace, Detroit, for as little as one dollar has generated frenzied interest among Chinese investors and wannabe real estate moguls. Let me offer two Latin words of caution: caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. In other words, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The CCTV broadcast generated more than a million Weibo postings. And as a result, thousands of would-be Chinese Donald Trumps have expressed an interest in going on a property buying tour of the Motor City. Making money in Detroit real estate could indeed be possible but requires the patience of a Warren Buffet or the biblical Job, not to mention the personality and trappings of Rambo. It's not for the thin-skinned or the faint of heart. Even though Detroit has recently been declared bankrupt, it's been a basket case for decades. I was there last month and it's like a patient on life-support. Surrounded by pleasant suburbs, the city of Detroit is the prototypical decayed American urban area: a doughnut (suburbs) with a hole (Detroit) in the middle. When I was growing up, Detroit was a prosperous place and had the country's largest per-capita income. Back then it was the fourth largest US city but nearly two-thirds of the population has fled, making it 18th. It was the center of the Michigan universe but has ceded the center to more dynamic cities like nearby Ann Arbor. | 
