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Have too many foreclosed properties?
Why not give them away?
That's what Bank of America plans to do with as many as 150 vacant and abandoned properties in and around Chicago through a new "collaboration" with the city that's intended to address the problem of abandoned properties.
"Unfortunately," BofA said in a statement, "many homeowners faced with unemployment, underemployment and other economic hardships have transitioned to alternative housing situations, and in many cases, have walked away from their homes, leaving behind vacant and deteriorating properties that can cause neighborhood blight."
As part of the new effort, BofA plans to:
- Register properties with the city when the mortgage is delinquent and the property has been identified as vacant and abandoned.
- Identify up to 150 properties that will be referred to a new Cook County vacant and abandoned building court call in an effort to speed up the foreclosure process and return the properties to stable, productive use. The foreclosure timeline for vacant and abandoned properties in the area currently averages 18 months, the bank said.
- Contribute funds toward the city's costs of demolishing deteriorating buildings on the donated properties.
- Donate foreclosed and vacant condominiums to the nonprofit Community Investment Corp. as part of an initiative to upgrade, preserve and stabilize management of affordable rental housing.
BofA also recently held a mortgage modification outreach event and opened a new full-time customer assistance center in Chicago.
These and other initiatives "provide convenient opportunities for customers who are having difficulty making their mortgage and other credit account payments to receive face-to-face counseling, on-site processing and underwriting of mortgage modification requests and other assistance," the bank explained.
Bank of America presently has 12 full-time customer assistance centers. Twenty-eight more are scheduled to open in the next few months. Seven will be located in California. Others will be in Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, D.C., Denver, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Antonio, St. Louis and other major cities.
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The only one who is making money is Bank of America and that rental company. Why don't they work with the people who are losing their homes, and those that are empty give the "low income" people who can't get homes because of credit or their low pay and make it an affordable rent-to-own home? Or maybe that might benefit too many people. You know the bank will come out of this without losing much because they will get their money back. Greed will be the downfall for all of us across the country.
The two key issues in the foreclosure crisis are (1) no-fault bank evictions after foreclosure that lead to vacancy and neighborhood decline and (2) including principal reduction with loan modifications. This stunt by Bank of America is designed to avoid these other much more significant solutions. Why give away a tiny number of vacant foreclosed properties? Why not agree to take rent from occupants, avoid displacement and social decay? Why not include principal reduction as part of loan mods, thus paying for the crisis the Banks themselves caused?
An d here I have been trying to get a loan modification with this company and keep getting denied!!!!! I work two jobs and all I asked of them was for a little help. Guess they would rather forclose on these homes, kick the people out and then give them away. Hmmmm....makes no sense to me.
The housing problem is a symptom. Jobs are the cure. When the jobs come back, people can buy houses again. It's as simple as that.
While it sounds all warm and fuzzy to give houses to people, I hope they will rigorously scrutinize the finances of the potential recipients (as rigorously as they do for the rest of us). Make sure the people that get the house are going to be responsible homeowners. Make sure that wealthy investors are not getting free houses that they will then sell to others. Make sure we aren't enabling more meth labs to be set up.
Why doesn't BOA modify the terms of the mortgages so the original owners can stay in their homes?
Give these houses to those people who are capable of paying the tax. In that way the local counties will be able to get some money back which could be based on the appraisal value in that area.
It's always "something better than nothing"
Banks think of their selves first, always, then about their customers. They charge high interest rates on credit cards and other loans and pay out 1% on any money in your bank account. So what makes me wonder if the are realey doing a good thing for others by giving away run down pieces of property to people who have no money (a tax deduction for the bank?) we the tax payers pay for the Banks lose. It's all greed, greed, greed on the backs of the hard working middle and lower class Americans.
Its time to put our money under a mattress or bury it in the back yard.
The economy in the united states of america is like a diabetics wound you can give it antibiotics and even put a band aid on it but it never realy heals or a person with herpies they are good for a few month and then an outbreak happens and all down hill from there then it heels and the cycle happens all over again.As the same with someone with cancer one day your fine the next you find you got it then the band aid,kemo therepy then its gone and the cycle starts all over again.Now i watch CNN and read the papers all i see is greed over paid people and corupt hosital,banking and Insurance companies all these which have control over our lives. We the working class make a certain wage in life and these companies try to to get the most they can from you buy finding out how much per year leaving you little or none or even in debt.
Just to say I dont fell sorry for these companies such as banks and it boils my blood to know that the goverment bailed them out with our tax money so they can go on robbing us sure i like getting robbed so much i will even pay for it. These banks that were going under should have went under and the people should have been able to buy up the assets for pennies on the dollar bringing the money and wealth back to the people. I could go on and on iam not writing a book just telling how i see it
BOA asked us to take out a bigger mortgage from our $160,000 to $450,000 way back in 2006. The hurricane just wiped out our business so we used the extra to rebuild. We rebuilt and then nobody paid their bills and we had to close our doors after 25 years. We were left with no income and an inflated mortgage. So far we are still in our home but BOA will lower the hammer soon. Nobody helped us refi or do a loan mod. I am on social security early retirement and don't get enough to pay for a loan mod now.
This caused us clinical depression and we are still being treated for depression. Someday we will find a little apartment and watch our home of 20 years be given away. God bless our country.
I agree with Shawn. You take away someones home, and then give it to someone else free of charge. That sure doesn't seem fair. How would you feel if someone took your house away from you, and just gave it to someone else. not so cool then is it.