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Purchasing a vacant home in Macomb County MI? Pick up the phone and call the city building department.
One of the cities in my area has a wonderful online service in which you can find out the current taxes, utility bills (water and sewer) and also check to see if there are any permits that have been pulled for repairs or renovations. In the case of vacant homes (foreclosures, REO's, etc.) there is also one more check that you as a purchaser need to do:  Pick up the phone and call the city and find out if a certificate of occupancy is needed prior to moving in to the home and if an inspection is needed by the building department. A buyer client and I are in the middle of a "counter offer" purchase on a bank owned home, and one of the things that I asked her to do was to call the city building department and find out if this home needed to have an inspection prior to her being able to move in to it.   As it turns out, this home was red-tagged (although the tag was not readily visible when we viewed the home) and does need to be inspected by the building department. It will cost the buyer $200 for the city building inspector ... more

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