LA Times story HERE says that $1 homes sold to cities haven't been going to owner occupants, but to investors and contractors. Typically these homes were sold to local governments and passed through to others, AFTER the homes sat on the market for 6+ months with no sales offers. Resale by cities to others also allowed cities to generate income for other housing related programs.
Think "Bow Wow" and you will get the idea of the condition of these properties and why direct acquisition by owner occupant without significant home repair skills would be unproductive for all.
Reminds me of story years ago of cops getting caught in owner occupancy lie after they picked up discounted foreclosed homes under Officer Next Door HUD program and flipped the homes in a year or two at a significant profit.
Key take away is if restrictions on occupancy and ownership are going to be a continuing requirement for foreclosure sales, it requires staff to do the leg work to insure compliance, as well as realistic expectations of who will benefit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That you should even need to write the last paragraph is an indication of how stupidly some gov't agencies have behaved. And how overly favorably the Bush administration & many governors have "chosen" to regard corporations of all kinds. As in "See No Evil" even if their job is, at least partly, to act in the public interest & protect the public. And the public's interest is not (as apparently the Bushies believed) to be the same as that of large corporations, and especially the big corporate players of the energy industry.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, the largest investment/commercial banks.
And including those you mention: those with spare cash to invest in housing, while others are homeless & have little but sweat equity to invest.