bank-owned homes

Via Michael Shedlock, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviews the growing problem of zombie subdivisions, those half-built developments you often see from a highway. Developers broke ground for these subdivisions near the end of the housing boom, and abandoned them when the mortgage crisis hit and financing dried up. Now the subdivisions are a drag on surrounding [...]

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki  weighs in on something TWI wrote about recently: The need for a new — and bolder — foreclosure strategy. Foreclosures continue to outpace loan modifications, even as the Obama administration presses the lending industry to do more. And in some communities, it’s not just the [...]

Calculated Risk has an excellent roundup today of local efforts to fight vacancies and blight caused by banks that abandon their foreclosed homes. Cities and neighborhoods increasingly are using local ordinance laws to require lenders to register their vacant properties and to keep them from falling into disrepair. California has led with way with anti-blight [...]

Right now, that video of  47-year-old unemployed Susan Boyle of Scotland taking “Britain’s Got Talent” by surprise with her soaring voice continues spread throughout blogosophere, even landing on PBS’ otherwise very serious NewsHour last night. But in the housing world, there’s a different video star – Jim the Realtor. His oddly mesmerizing and frequently caustic [...]

CNN picks up on a mostly overlooked component of the mortgage crisis that TWI has been following: Growing numbers of trashed and abandoned bank-owned foreclosed homes. Some of the houses left behind by banks are so damaged they’re never going to sell, CNN reports, citing mortgage analyst Thomas Popik:
“About a third of all of the [...]

Speaking of businesses making money from the downturn, The New York Times reports today on how the real estate industry is trying to cash in on the glut in REOs, or Real Estate Owned properties. Those are foreclosed homes that don’t sell at foreclosure auctions or sheriff’s sales and are taken back by banks.
Cashing in [...]