this way they can write off the loan at face value too
Posted on 10/14/2011 8:38:40 PM PDT by FritzG
The sight of excavators tearing down vacant buildings has become common in this foreclosure-ravaged city, where the housing crisis hit early and hard. But the story behind the recent wave of demolitions is novel — and cities around the country are taking notice.
A handful of the nation’s largest banks have begun giving away scores of properties that are abandoned or otherwise at risk of languishing indefinitely and further dragging down already depressed neighborhoods.
The banks have even been footing the bill for the demolitions — as much as $7,500 a pop. Four years into the housing crisis, the ongoing expense of upkeep and taxes, along with costly code violations and the price of marketing the properties, has saddled banks with a heavy burden. It often has become cheaper to knock down decaying homes no one wants.
The demolitions in some cases have paved the way for community gardens, church additions and parking lots. Even when the result is an empty lot, it can be one less pockmark. While some widespread demolitions could risk hollowing out the urban core of struggling cities such as Cleveland, advocates say that the homes being targeted are already unsalvageable and that the bulldozers are merely “burying the dead.”
The task of plowing under the homes rests with the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., which grew out of a 2009 state law aimed at creating “land banks” with the power and money to acquire unwanted properties and put them to better use — or at least put them out of their misery.
The efforts have led other states to pursue similar laws to deal with their own foreclosure epidemics. New York passed a comparable measure this summer. Similar legislation is in the works in Georgia, Philadelphia and elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
this way they can write off the loan at face value too
you forgot the city—
cleveland.
two reactions: 1. un-f’ing-believable. 2. Half the houses built in Florida weren’t fit for a landfill the day the crooked inspector signed the CO.
Yep, if you look at Detroit on Google Earth, might as well be Iowa.
Detroit’s been doing that for years. I wonder how that’s working out for them?
The banks throw people out of their homes and the government destroys the homes behind them.
The government is causing street people population to grow. The banks and the government are now marxist cronies.
Do ya think conservatives are gonna hit the streets when we bailout Europe next month?
Yeah, but isn't that what they've been trying to avoid, because of the hits to earnings and equity?
My husband and I were driving through a Cleveland neighborhood last week and noticed empty lots where houses stood a year ago. My response was “I would have a big garden on one of those lots!”
Although I hate how it happened (too much government in the housing market) it makes the neighborhood look a lot better. Fewer flop houses for crack heads. There are some very well kept homes among the blighted.
Terrible why it’s happening but if I lived next to a house going under the bulldozer I would hope the bank would offer me or the other neighbor the land at a great price...houses with big lots aren’t bad :>)
Sometimes karma catches up with the Banks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TsO6wkdzhc&feature=related
Makes sense. Vacant property = lower insurance and taxes.
That was before Federal bailouts were available. Companies had to figure out how to stay solvent all by themselves. Prudential knew they had used a good methodology when deciding who to make a mortgage loan to, so they knew those houses were in the hands of people who were in a jam not of their own creation. Leaving those people in the homes and working with them was a great solution for a number of reasons.
Now, banks know they put all sorts of bad loans out in order to meet Federal guidelines, so they can't be very selective when it's time to decide how to handle foreclosures. If they keep someone they know is and has been solid in the home like Prudential did, it just means they're setting themselves up for lawsuits for throwing out the people who are bums, were bums when lied to get the mortgage, and will be bums no matter what the economy is doing. I bet anyone reading here can think of a half dozen race hatred mongers that would lead the charge to sue any bank that tried to honestly and select which folks they could trust to remain in a home and which they couldn't.
Even when there are the sort of people managing a company these days as there were managing Prudential at that time, they're between a rock and a hard place just like they were when the Feds told them they had better write more high risk loans or they'd be investigated for being racist or homophobic or whatever else is fashionable on any given day.
If, on the other hand, the government were to try the approach Prudential used they'd screw it up with the same sort of quotas and unrealistic standards they applied to the banks and others in the first place. Anyone who starts to get back on their feet would bail because they wouldn't want to play the sort of games Federal agencies use to justify their jobs and explain why even more little Federal robots need hired. There would Federal inspections to see if you're maintaining your home, inspections of you spend a percentage of you income on your home that is within the guidelines, interviews to see if you have the proper loyalty toward your neighborhood, paperwork by the ton for anything that needed repair, and general intrusions into the lives of everyone in the program to make sure every homeowner wasn't a child abuser, did deal with their children according to educator approved guidelines, didn't smoked cigarettes in their Federal home, and of course, associated with a sufficiently diverse group of people, and so on.
In the era you refer to, Prudential was free to do the right thing for themselves and the people in the homes. These days, it’s illegal to use good judgment unless the Federal and State governments agree with what you think is good judgment and then make rules to ensure that your good judgment doesn’t interfere with their prerogatives as your master and the creators of a new society.
Regards
Banks, I mean fanny and freddy become land barrons now! Sell the land to overseas investors, you know globalization! What a brilliant idea but dont forget to leave some for redistribution renting of coarse the rents would be subsudized by the tax payers you know FREE FREE FREE! and the politicians will fill thier coffers and thier pockets, something for everyone, Transformation is wonderful isn’t it?
it's all beyond me... if they had renegotiated the loans the people still working would prolly still be in some of the houses making payments, now they are only worth bulldozing
I wish they would speed this process up in my area. Many of the abandoned homes are in terrible states of disrepair. Local ute’s trash them and use them for sex and drugs. They are disgusting eye sores as well as havens for criminal and wild animals. There is little hope for these homes, since they have been stripped of wiring, and the sheetrock inside is rotted and useless. At minimum, the house would have to be torn down to the foundation and studs and started all over, but why when there are other homes in the neighborhood that are in salable condition? Therefore, it has been my opinion that these homes should be destroyed. Good riddance.
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