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Next door, but no longer a neighbor.

 

Jeff Rahn had gotten frustrated with living next to a foreclosed home in Sunnyvale, Calif., so he looked up the public records on it. He reports finding that the neighbors had taken out a pair of mortgages in 2006, then apparently stopped paying and moved away in 2007. The lender, American Home Mortgage, has since gone bankrupt and been sold for upward of $7 million.

In the foreclosure process, American Home Mortgage's creditors agreed to settle, leading to an auction in February 2008. Rahn's not sure why no one bought it and moved in, but the house remained empty. This week a demolition crew showed up, he writes. "Now the house has been reduced to rubble."

He wonders whether banks are just finding it so difficult to sell foreclosed houses that they'd rather bulldoze them. He writes:

I like the idea of banks getting their balance sheets in order, but is this what it leads to in the real world, houses being torn down?

categories: Economic Scene

1:37 - May 22, 2009

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