Vacant homes from the foreclosure crisis are being blamed for creating blight in neighborhoods across the country and even presenting safety issues for those who live nearby. While vacant homes are blamed for dragging selling prices down, home owners who live nearby report that not enough is being mentioned about the affects these deteriorating homes has on them.
The abandoned homes are often left to deteriorate during a lengthy foreclosure process, causing lawns to become overgrown, roofs to leak, animals to move inside, and more. Neighbors complain that the vacant homes threaten their quality of life, AOL Real Estate reports. Some also say the homes threaten their safety. For example, neighbors recall a foreclosed home infested with snakes that also covered the backyard as well. Or another home that was in danger of a gas explosion after burglars removed a furnace.
These vacant homes “become magnets of crime,” says Ed Jacob, executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago. “They’ll get stripped of all their copper. People use them to stash their drugs. It’s a huge psychological effect on home owners who are hanging on.”
Local governments and consumer advocacy groups have been trying to get more banks to better maintain the properties. One of the most recent public efforts has been by the city of Los Angeles, which filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and U.S. Bancorp for allegedly failing to maintain some of their repossessed properties. In another recent effort, the National Fair Housing Alliance has filed complaints with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, alleging that U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo haven’t properly maintained repossessed properties that are in mostly minority neighborhoods, AOL Real Estate reports.
The author of this article is: realtormag.realtor.org
See the original post at: http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2012/09/25/neighbors-complain-about-vacant-home-blight
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