Devious Scheme or Monumental Stupidity?

[Remmycool]

Hi all,

New to the forums. Have a question.

I live in Southern Ontario and recently bought an old motorcycle (1983 Kawasaki 440, if you're interested. Beautiful bike). However, due to my age (22) and total lack of driving experience, insurance is going to be ridiculously expensive. As in $2500 the first year and probably $2000+ until I turn 25. Just for comparison, the whole bike cost $1500 and I think I overpaid.

Since I'm currently between jobs and perpetually short on money, I'm on the lookout for schemes that allow me to get on the road for cheap. After fooling around with the dangerous (driving uninsured) and the ludicrous (creating a fake license plate and insurance slip on photoshop), I came up with something which just may be legitimately brilliant.

I always hear about how rough things are in Detroit and how you can buy a foreclosed property for a couple hundred dollars. My idea is: Buy a cheapo property in Detroit, spend a couple weeks fixing it up to meet the code, register my motorcycle in Michigan, insure it for a fraction of the Ontario rate, and drive down once a month for maintenance. The taxes on a $500 property can't be much, and I wouldn't be paying utilities because I really only need an address.

By my (very rough) math, I might even wind up saving money the very first year, and by the time I'm 25 I'll have saved thousands. Plus, I'll be the first among my friends to be a homeowner. There's pride in that.

My question is: Is it possible? Can I just waltz over the border and start paying cash for land? Would there be significant repercussions from my border-straddling? Is there some massive hidden cost that I've missed somewhere along the line?

If this is just flat-out ridiculous, please don't hesitate to say so. This is just something that came to me in the shower an hour ago, and I ran straight online to look it up.

If you think I may be on to something, I'd appreciate any input you may have. I realize this is a long shot, but I've got to try. Who knows- maybe a month from now I'll be sipping cheap American piss-beer on the front porch of my tiny dilapidated property.

Hey, a guy can dream.

[Reba]

Problem is with getting the bike and yourself licensed in Michigan. Unless you have some sort of visa that allows you to be resident there, they won't license you.

http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-12 ... --,00.html

Sorry.

[Steven]

It's not really an option as you will discover when you visit www.riv.ca

Plus Michigan State law would be an additional problem.