Living After Foreclosure

Some new developments in California are mostly, or just about entirely, vacant.

The housing industry had been stepping on the accelerator for a few years at the beginning of the decade.  As big as it is, it gained momentum over those years.  But now that it’s been barreling along so fast for so long, it will take a while to slow down, even with both feet on the brakes and the parking brake on.  With the lightning-fast pace of construction in once-hot areas like California, builders are still building, and are still holding, new homes that would only fetch two-thirds of what they would have fetched a year ago.

On the other coast, some friends from our church live in a newer subdivision.  It’s not quite ghost-town status but there are quite a few vacant lots nearby.  A few are sold; some aren’t.  The houses are big:  4,000 square-foot-ish.  I suspect the prices will come down quite a bit before the rest are sold.  They’ll probably be sold one way or another, but until then, the neighbors next door are vacant.

Living in a ghost town is lonely, and things tend to rot and fall apart.

• Stripped for copper Abandoned houses attract a lot of things: partying teenagers, mice, rocks through the windows, the elements. Now, with the houses rotting away in varying states in the foreclosure process, these houses are now attracting black-market commodities dealers.  The houses are broken into and stripped of their copper pipes and wires. ......
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• "And on your right we have this beautiful three-bedroom..." Banks are hurting as foreclosures turn into non-performing and expensive real estate owned. Homeowners are hurting because they're losing equity, or losing their homes and their credit rating. Neighbors are hurting because their property values are getting dinged, even though they're paying their mortgage on time. Cities are hurting because......
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