Can't Pay Your Mortgage? Trash Your House and Leave.

[bemildred]

On the lookout for disturbing trends? Here's one for your pile: According to a recent article in Fortune, there has been a noticeable increase in not just fraud but arson that has kept pace with the housing depression. Professionals in the insurance and lending industry are bracing themselves for all manner of similar situations, as homeowners either trash, or simply leave their trash lying around their houses, often taking off without even claiming their furniture. This is already a dirty problem in the housing business, with owners, lenders and banks having to figure out a way to stick each other with the check when tenants destroy their property on their way out the door. Woe is the person left behind to clean up the chaos.

"We just estimated a trashout yesterday where we're going to have to drain the pool," one Fontana, CA resident posted on AgentsOnline.Net, a resource and idea site for realtors, "and the stench from it when you enter the backyard is overwhelming. Then, of course there are mosquitoes all over the top and it's been sitting so long without chemicals that it's green on top and murky black on the bottom. We've already had to refuse one pool because of its really creepy condition and I'm not so sure about this one either. I just hope we don't find the previous homeowner at the bottom when we drain it."

"Vacant homes attract vandals and depress property values," explained Douglas Robinson, spokesman for NeighborWorks America, a nonprofit created by Congress to offer financial and technical support and training for community-based revitalization. "This negatively affects existing owners and reduces local property tax revenues. But very few homeowners walk away, although those who do believe that is their best option. Of course, trying to get a loan modification so that the payments are affordable is their best option."

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/75228/?page=entire

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. A repeat of the early-mid eighties, in pockets throughout the country. It will probably be more

widespread this time.

:-(

[madrchsod]

2. a lot of the house flipping shows

have houses that were "trashed" by the former owners or squatters. many houses are stripped of everything that is resalable leaving the houses worthless. so instead of working with the home owners to stay in the homes to protect the lenders property/investment they end up with a shell and a piece of dirt that no one will buy.

welcome to america in 2008

[ixion]

3. it is poor behaviour on all parties: banks and homeowners

if the banks were more humane, and understood that they'd written a loan for far more than the property was worth -- if they were will to work with the homeowners and adjust the note -- this crap wouldn't be happening.

On the other hand, it is dishonorable to trash a place before you leave, even if you were screwed over, IMO.

[nels25]

4. I rented for a long time

and I never wanted to trash my place, when I left (I had IMHO an excellent landlord).

I have a house now that I absolutly love, and can still afford (knock on wood).

:D

[Skittles]

5. there's been a couple times I wanted to do it, but I never would

it just seems very no-class. :o

[truedelphi]

6. Agree you on what you say. And the thought of arson is

Even worse - in a dry area of the country a whole neighborhood might burn.

And the firefighters have to risk their necks for What? Someone making a statement?

[meow2u3]

7. If you can't sell it, shell it?

That's what it sounds like.

[OhioChick]

8. I Recently Read

That many in the Cleveland area that are being foreclosed on are resorting to arson.

[depakid]

9. ....you can always just give it up to the pigs

like this guy did!

EAGLE CREEK, Ore. - A home here has been turned into a pig sty.

Three pigs have been ransacking a four bedroom home on Southeast Wildcat Mountain Drive that was repossessed in January.



Neighbors said the former owner was extremely upset that he had been forced out. Detectives believe he tried to get even by trapping three very large pigs inside the home.



"Now, we have damage to the house - extensive damage to the home - as well as there were three 200-pound pigs that were apparently trapped inside, or they were placed inside and concealed in this residence, for a week," said Detective Jim Strovink, a spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.



More: http://www.komotv.com/news/local/7709877.html

[salin]

10. I bought a foreclosed house ... and there were random

cabinet doors missing, the banisters were gone, and other random things that had no real use outside of the house were taken. Oddest thing about the house was that the previous owner had put a deadbolt on the front door - that locked from the outside (ala locking people inside.)

Given that there was obvious work that had to be done to the house (and the house was only five years old when I bought it) - I offered what was asked for minus the obvious costs of replacing what the previous tenants had taken with them (like the banisters) when walking out on the house.

[TexasBushwhacker]

12. Yeah, I bought a foreclosed house back in 1985

It was one of many in the subdivision. At least half the homes on my block were foreclosed and vacant. When I was still house shopping, I toured a house where they'd actually taken the kitchen sink!

[stevenleser]

11. I am not sold on the idea that this is necessarily bad...

... if people were duped by greedy sub-prime lenders into signing a mortgage that they didnt know was going to have interest rates that ballooned to the point that the payments would be far beyond what they could afford, whether or not they were promised (falsely I might add) that they would be able to refinance later, then I think this could be a legitimate form of protest. I havent completely decided yet.

If the large finance corporations knowingly did a lot of this, and the government doesnt step in to help and discipline those corporations, I have to say that I hope those finance companies get back nothing they can sell when they foreclose.