McMansion in Morgan Waterfront Estates Asks $550K

For anyone who thinks McMansion living only happens in the suburbs, Detroit counters with the Morgan Waterfront Estates. These massive homes sit on the harbor, and come with boat slips, so you can keep a mansion and a yacht together for convenience. This 4-bedroom, 5-bath house has all the things you expect from new construction. Built in 2008, the house has a massive master bath with a freestanding tub. It has a fireplace, a granite kitchen, and a theater room. There's also an attached 4-car garage.

For $550K, you might also buy a similarly-sized home in Boston Edison, Indian Village, or Palmer Woods. It will be old, though—many of those houses were built between 1912 and 1940. So a comparably priced house not in the gated community won't come with new house smell. This house has a history, too—a history of going off and on the market in 2009 and never actually selling. The first ask price for the place was a huge nonstarter (literally)—in 2009, fresh on the heels of the subprime mortgage crisis, the developer tried an ask price of $970K. Just two months later, it dropped to $550K and didn't sell. A year later, they tried again, but asked $650K. This also failed, as did attempts to rent the home for $4000 a month.

Not all new construction is bad. Some of the newly built custom homes we've featured are clearly built to last, well-designed and even beautiful. This house is simply...large. The ask seems very high, given the home's history on the market. But you can absolutely live the Elmer Fudd lifestyle here, which may add a little cachet to this massive white elephant.

·1405 Balmoral [Curbed Detroit]
·Elmer J Fudd, Millionaire [YouTube]
·M-22 House Offers Traverse City Vacations for $3.99 Million [Curbed Detroit]