More Property Preservation Services Needed

An article by Paul    Comments Off on More Property Preservation Services Needed

Government Accountability Office Wants More Foreclosure Trash Outs

As was reported often, some of the major concerns due to the overpowering collection of foreclosures prior to now few years was the impact on America’s neighborhoods.

The large selection of vacant homes that experience yet to be processed as foreclosures – and thus, haven’t been cleaned, repaired and secured by a property preservation company – have created real difficulties for communities. Perhaps the most important problem is that there are many abandoned properties where mortgage holders have simply walked faraway from houses once they feel they are going to never recoup their losses from them.

These homes are called “bank walkaways,” and, for the reason that bank never notifies anyone they’re abandoning the valuables, the home quickly falls into complete disrepair. Twenty U.S. areas account for 61 percent of the bank walkaways, with the foremost occurring in cities in Michigan, Ohio, and Florida.

Abandoned homes can devastate an area. They may cause spikes in crime, further depress property values, and become a security hazard in addition to an eyesore. Local governments can often be left holding the bag; they need to dig into already-strained public services budgets to either hire a mortgage field services company to deal with the house or pay to have the building in question demolished.

The Government Accountability Office has noticed this growing crisis and desires to do something positive about it. They need to require mortgage lenders to inform the local government, in addition to the homeowner currently occupying the valuables, that they’re walking far from the valuables.

Its new report demands bank regulators, the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to issue that requirement; the GOA’s blog at the matter might be seen at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-93?campaign=blog.

Many communities are already starting to pass legislation requiring mortgage lenders to inform them when a property goes into foreclosure, making sure that property preservation services and foreclosure trash outs could be performed.

The demand for foreclosure trash outs is unquestionably not likely away any time soon; recently, Elizabeth Duke, governor of the Federal Reserve, recently informed Congress that the Reserve projects over 2 million foreclosures in 2011 and a couple of million more in 2012, the same foreclosure rate to the past two years. With an increased demand by local governments for the cleaning and securing of those properties, experts believe that property preservation will remain the most important foreclosure business opportunity.