Detroit Hustle ---- Amy Haimerl Restored the Historic Herzog House in Detroit's West Village to Break the Chains of High Rent in Brooklyn

Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

Loutit Public Library

Amy Haimerl and her husband, Karl Kaebnick, started out with a purchase of a thirty five thousand dollar house at the base of Van Dyke Avenue.

Four hundred thousand dollars later, the Herzog house was ready to welcome guests for another century.

Talmer Bank, with a branch in Grand Haven, appraised the house at three hundred thousand, the highest appraisal in the neighborhood.

Spend 435 Thousand and get back 300 Thousand? Amy Haimerl and her husband call that a bargain, the best she ever had. The couple paid three and a half grand to rent a place in Brooklyn, so the investment made economic sense. That's a payback in ten years because now the couple builds equity every month.

A journalist by profession, she also squeezed a great book out of their shared ordeal. She gathered material, writing frequent blog posts that accounted for every penny. Last night, she held an audience at the Loutit Public Library in awe for a lot longer than expected. So don't be afraid to book her for your event.

Restoring the Herzog House is an impressive feat in a city although for how long will such stories be amazing? It's been decades since that awful year when the city didn't issue a single building permit.

Photograph of Matilda by Amy Haimerl. This is a before photograph.