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 [...]

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Fifteen to twenty thousand dollars in repairs because thieves stole $40 worth of copper? Ouch. That was a bit more than I would have guessed. Maybe a couple thousand at the most to repair a wall or some floors? Not $20,000!
Very costly repairs like this will drag down housing prices further. [...]

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This is just for the Dallas-Fort Worth area but the number of foreclosures filed against $1-million-plus homes more than doubled this past year. One hundred twelve percent higher for the first six months of this year compared to last year, to be exact.
As for slightly less-expensive homes, the increases in foreclosure filings were still [...]

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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 vacant homes [...]

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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.  Copper has quintupled in price over [...]

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