Communities Continue to Deal With Unsightly Foreclosures
Foreclosures are everywhere – the national rate is one home foreclosure out of every 563 units as of October, 2011, and is set to only grow as the year ends and the next year begins. Many opportunities are present with each foreclosure for investors and homebuyers who are all looking for terrific discounts, but these distressed properties also bring with them several unsightly side-effects.
One particular impact that foreclosure houses have had is blight. All across the nation, communities feature entire neighborhoods decimated by abandoned and neglected foreclosures, homes that sit vacant because their previous owners have been evicted or have walked away – leaving these repo homes in the care of banks and lenders who are not equipped to maintain them.
As a result, these homes feature lawns that have been overgrown, pools that are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, weed-choked gardens, and dilapidated structures that are not only eyesores, but also home to vagrants, criminals, and even stray animals.
Needless to say, many homeowners are distressed by the plight and have protested the lack of care of these abandoned foreclosures to city governments that have not been very effective in enforcing their upkeep through housing codes.
All of this has a measurable impact on the economy, since foreclosures bring down the home values of surrounding properties. This in turn delays any semblance of a housing recovery and increases the problems associated with having underwater mortgages – namely, the inability to refinance a costly mortgage and keep a home, thus further contributing to the vicious foreclosure cycle.
For their part, cities are having problems with properly identifying the current owners of these home foreclosures and enforcing codes. Many complaints are delayed and never fully investigated, which means volunteers and concerned citizens are forced to pitch in as a way of tidying up a home and keeping it from being too much of a blight on the neighborhood.
One solution is to loosen regulations on processing foreclosures and selling them, as a way of encouraging investors to purchase these dilapidated properties, renovating them, and reselling them to interested homebuyers. This often is the only approach that works if the home contains serious problems, like busted piping, missing insulation, stripped fixtures, or other major damage in need of extensive repairs that only investors are willing to commission.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of homes sit empty, waiting for their turn through the foreclosure process for buyers to show up and make them whole again.
