Firm gives 'stuck' homeowners a hand up

The housing bubble's burst left a boom market for home buyers. For sellers, however, not so much.

Mike Kalis is trying to level that playing field.

Kalis says his Plymouth-based Marketplace Homes can get customers with upside-down mortgages — those who owe more than their houses are worth because of the steep fall in property values — into brand-new homes in subdivisions in Michigan and many other states, plus guarantee, for up to six years, a monthly rent check for the old home, whether a tenant is renting it or not.

Marketplace has been offering the option for about three years, and has signed on more than 40 builders in about 20 states. There were 100 new homes sold under the plan in 2009, 205 last year, and in 2011, Marketplace is on track to exceed its goal of selling 365 homes, Kalis said.

“What people need is a good solution for their old home, and that's what we're doing here,” Kalis said during a recent interview. The idea, he said, is help homeowners who want to buy new or who need a bigger home but feel trapped by the market in their current home. Many Marketplace customers have growing families, he said.

“All of a sudden, they just feel stuck,” Kalis said. “We help to unstick the stuck.”

BUILDER PARTNERS

Marketplace partners with some of the country's top home builders, recently signing Pulte Homes (Kalis used to work there), for example, and is selling houses at subdivisions throughout suburban Detroit, including Knightsbridge Gate in Novi, Lyon Ridge in South Lyon and Stone Ridge in Green Oaks Township. Marketplace gets a commission — a finder's fee, one might call it — from the builders, who are eager, in the extended downturn, to sell homes and finish slowed-down subdivision projects.

“The value and prices people can get things at right now are just incredible,” said Kalis. For example, he said, a new 2,200-square-foot house in Novi, in a new subdivision, could go for about $180,000.

The plan worked for Jennifer and Jeff Steger, who moved with son Elliot, who is nearly 3, to a four-bedroom house in Knightsbridge Gate in April.

“It sounded a little too good to be true, so we were a little skeptical,” Jennifer Steger said.

They had bought a 1,200-square-foot house in southwest Livonia in 2005, and the market crash put them upside-down with their mortgage, she said.

But the Stegers researched the market and decided to go with Marketplace. “It's been a positive experience. We haven't had any surprises yet,” Jennifer Steger said.

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