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Thumbnail panels:

I thought I'd throw out a little information on the city I live in. The good and the bad.

I have had three homes in Clawson over the years and I always liked this town because it is relatively small and low key. Although Karoline and I have considered moving to other states from time to time we have not found what Michigan offers just yet, that being the four pretty distinct seasons. We continue to travel and look for that one place worth leaving our home state for. We like Utah, Montana, California and Arizona. but we are still looking for "the place". Until then, Clawson is home.

I have to say that it has been an interesting housing market nationwide over the past year or so and although Michigan in particular had taken a major hammering, it seems to be heading across the country now and so everyone else is going to take the same beating we have. Like the stock market, short of a full crash you have to sit tight and ride the ride. In the end it should even up and so we don't let it concern us to much.

I lucked out in the buy/sell of my past homes when the market was up. I managed some low buy-ins, did a little work and made some profitable sells. Karoline and I could have opted to buy a new super fancy house in one of the must live areas around here if we had chosen to. You know, the massive 3000-6000 sq ft monster house which a lot of my friends and co workers were lured into during the economic upswing and the unlimited credit lines the banks were handing out to anyone who had a job, and some who didn't. It was tempting but we chose to forgo the mega digs and must live areas and save our money, buying in Clawson was fine by us and it has surely made it possible for my early retirement. I mean how big of a place do you really need?

After we got married we sold my house and bought a place together in Royal Oak and although we liked the area and the location, and there is just the two of us and our two cats we wanted something just a little bigger. We really needed a bigger garage to house our trackday companies inventory and to prep the race team bikes, as well as parking for the cars.

After a little searching we found our current home in Clawson, MI. It is 1650 sq ft, three floors and since it was built in 1979 it was relatively new. What I liked was the 2 3/4 garage which now has 220 service for the big tools, and the fact that it had a full basement. Karoline and I handled the sale of the Royal Oak house and the people we were buying the Clawson house from were doing the same which saved us a bundle of cash.

One of the reasons we picked the house was because it was close to the downtown district making it easier to wander down to the multitude of local pubs, like the Black Lotus Brewing Company, and Royal Kubo. Tthere is an old style A&W and Dairy Queen, there are also three good breakfast resturants, Frittata is one of the best, all within walking distance and a multitude of little shops we can get to without driving. Beside if we are lazy I bought a Yamaha Zuma (scooter) for the race team that gets double duty and it's cheap transportation. Clawson also has a top notch forth of July parade and fireworks display that we can take in right from our house. Click here to watch a video of the fireworks finale. Of course we have our own car show downtown, within walking distance that leads up to the Woodward Cruise. The Detroit Zoo is a 10 nowadays. It is simply an awesome zoo, and Karoline and I have been to a few around the country. It has one if not the only underground, visable polar bear exhibits that has to be seen to be believed. (there are some pictures above).

Since we moved in we have completely refurbished the house, we installed new tile foors throughout the kitchen, halls and back sun room. In the living room we opted to go with 3/4 inch European German Beach hardwood floors which turned out fantastic with the tile and the built in fireplace. We remodeled every room on oth floors including the bathrooms. I am currently completing a rebuilding project on our basement which will become my new office, sound studio and network server room. We have two hundred amp service which is awesome for my expansion and will allow me to run my office on seperate circuits. My plan is to build in a nice mini theater with surround sound. And a new race simulator. Once done I plan to build cabinets for the piles of collectibles that I have and a couple of mannequins for some of my old riding gear. Then it's on to the last piece I need to redo which is the kitchen. After I finish my basement remodel I plan to tackle that. We have relaced all of the major appliances, new heat and air, hot water heater and gutters. We did a major re make on the front of the house by adding a new peak over the porch and a new wide concrete walkway. Of course we also re did the landscaping.

Out back we have a huge deck that runs the length of the house, appoximately 40 x 20. The back yard is quite small and I like it. Very little grass to cut. This year I plan to build out a Japanese garden around the edges of the yard. I'm looking forward to that project. I enjoy working with Bonsai and so it should be a fun project.

We have a love/hate relationship with the city. Taxes are stupid high, the city goverment is so so in terms of brilliance. The loving side is that this city is safe, 1 murder in 6 years, I think 13 robberys in the same time. Garbage pickup is 1st class, The city snow plowing is top notch, you are2 1/2 miles from the freeway, a mall and a ton of shopping and hundreds of restaurants. A kick ass 4th of July parade and fireworks just caps off this cool little town.

Although housing prices have dropped over the past few years, we expect that this area will improve in the future. It's a nice small town that has room to improve and we think it will. Lets face it, until the housing market falls into a black hole, we aren't sweating that issue. Real eastate will always have value. The real issue is the economy and until that gets sorted out and back on track, nothing is going to get better.

Check out the Clawson city data link in the links section on the top right side of the page for more data and information on Clawson. As I said the taxes are a bit overboard. But this city does have it's perks!

Links

City of Clawson Information

City of Clawson Information 2

Clawson City Data

Information on Clawson

Video Montage of N.Michigan

Michigan Weather