Michigan's largest county, from Detroit to Downriver to the western suburbs. We buy houses in 20 Wayne County cities for cash — as-is, no commissions, and you choose the closing date.
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We buy houses across Wayne County, from Detroit out to the county line. This page covers what selling here involves at the county level — the probate court, the register of deeds, the tax foreclosure timeline, and the transfer tax — along with every Wayne County city we cover.
Wayne County is the most populous county in Michigan and by far the most varied place we buy houses. It contains Detroit itself, the Downriver communities along the river, the older inner-ring suburbs, and the large western townships and cities. A single county line covers Grosse Pointe and River Rouge, Livonia and Highland Park. No county-level average describes any of those places well, which is worth keeping in mind if you've looked up a Wayne County figure and tried to apply it to your own address.
It's also the county where the most goes wrong with conventional sales, and that's not an accident. Wayne County carries the state's heaviest concentration of tax-delinquent property, the largest inventory of long-vacant housing, and the most active land bank. Those conditions produce the situations we deal with constantly here: houses that no lender will finance because there aren't comparable sales to support an appraisal, homes stripped of copper and mechanicals during a vacancy, properties with open city violations, and estates where heirs live out of state and inherited a house along with a tax bill.
A typical Wayne County home is worth $179,490, up 1.4% over the past year and up 20% across five years. Wayne County has the widest internal value range of the three counties we cover. Within Detroit alone, tracked neighborhood values run from roughly $50,000 to over $530,000, and the county also contains both Grosse Pointe and some of the lowest-priced housing in the state. Two houses fifteen minutes apart can be in entirely different markets, with different buyers and different obstacles.
Market figures: Zillow Home Value Index, July 2026. City figures use the same index for each city.
20 cities, each with its own page covering local housing stock, market conditions, and what complicates a sale there.
| City | Typical home value | vs. county |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit | $76,084 | 58% below county |
| Livonia | $319,165 | 78% above county |
| Dearborn | $253,490 | 41% above county |
| Westland | $217,986 | 21% above county |
| Taylor | $180,863 | About the county average |
| Dearborn Heights | $218,417 | 22% above county |
| Lincoln Park | $155,021 | 14% below county |
| Garden City | $207,556 | 16% above county |
| Allen Park | $212,490 | 18% above county |
| Southgate | $197,960 | 10% above county |
| Wyandotte | $191,950 | 7% above county |
| Romulus | $206,880 | 15% above county |
| Inkster | $110,374 | 39% below county |
| Redford | $178,125 | About the county average |
| Harper Woods | $157,299 | 12% below county |
| Hamtramck | $165,574 | 8% below county |
| Highland Park | — | — |
| Grosse Pointe | $488,174 | 172% above county |
| Ecorse | $80,893 | 55% below county |
| River Rouge | $83,262 | 54% below county |
We also publish detailed pages for individual Detroit neighborhoods:
Selling a house runs through county offices. Here's which ones, and what each one means for your sale.
Estates for Wayne County property are administered through the Wayne County Probate Court in Detroit. If the house was owned solely by someone who has died and there's no trust or joint owner, the estate generally has to be opened and a personal representative appointed before anyone can sign a deed. We work alongside your attorney on this regularly and can hold an offer open while it proceeds.
The deed transferring your property is recorded with the Wayne County Register of Deeds. This is also where existing liens, mortgages, and judgments against the property show up during a title search — including ones sellers sometimes don't know about, like an old contractor's lien or a spouse's judgment.
The Wayne County Treasurer runs the largest tax foreclosure operation in Michigan. Under state law property becomes forfeited after roughly a year of delinquency and foreclosed in the March of the third year, after which it goes to auction and the owner's equity is gone. Delinquent taxes can be paid out of sale proceeds at closing, so selling is often the way out — but only if it happens before the foreclosure deadline.
Michigan charges a state real estate transfer tax of $3.75 per $500 of value and a county transfer tax of $0.55 per $500, which works out to $8.60 per $1,000 of sale price. It's customarily paid by the seller. A principal residence exemption from the state portion is available in some circumstances.
On a Wayne County home selling at the county's typical value of $179,490, the combined state and county transfer tax comes to roughly $1,544. It's customarily the seller's cost, and it's deducted at closing rather than paid up front.
For a full breakdown of what a sale costs in Michigan, see our guide to the cost of selling a house.
No listing, no showings, no waiting on a buyer's financing. Three steps from first call to cash in hand.
Enter your address and contact info. It takes less than 60 seconds. There's no pressure to move forward.
We look at your home in person. Then we give you a fair, written cash offer — usually within 24 hours.
Pick the date that works for you. We handle the paperwork. You walk away with cash.
Not necessarily, but the timing is genuinely tight and it's the one deadline in this business that doesn't move. Michigan forecloses in March of the third year of delinquency, and once title passes to the county treasurer you lose the property and any equity in it. Before that date you can still sell, and the delinquent balance comes out of the proceeds at closing rather than out of your pocket beforehand. If you're in this situation, the useful thing is to find out exactly which year you're in — call us and we'll help you work out how much time you actually have.
Because appraisers need recent comparable arms-length sales to support a value, and across large parts of Detroit and a few of the inner-ring communities those sales don't exist in sufficient number. Where they don't, the appraisal can't be supported, so the mortgage is declined regardless of the condition of the individual house. That removes nearly every financed buyer from the market and is the single biggest reason cash sales dominate in those areas. We don't need an appraisal or a lender's sign-off.
Yes. We buy throughout Wayne County, including Wyandotte, Southgate, Lincoln Park, Allen Park, Ecorse, River Rouge, and Taylor, along with the western side of the county in Livonia, Westland, Garden City, and Romulus. Each has its own page with local detail, and the Downriver market behaves quite differently from Detroit — more consistent comparable sales, more financed buyers, and generally fewer of the appraisal problems that come up in the city.
Browse every city we buy in, read about how the process works, or see our statewide Michigan page.
Tell us about the property. We'll get back to you with a no-obligation cash offer, usually within 24 hours. You choose the closing date.
