Our Changing Globe

Posts Tagged ‘real estate’

Why Banks Are Using Bulldozers on Foreclosed Homes | The …

curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com8/1/11

UPDATED (5:29 PM) Banks have a new remedy for America's ailing housing market: bulldozers. There are nearly 1.7 million homes in the U.S. in some state of foreclosure. Banks already own some of these homes and will …

Council to bulldoze 175 homes in Gateshead – Chronicle News …

www.chroniclelive.co.uk12/6/11

YET more families are being forced from their homes as Gateshead Council flattens a third housing estate.

---

 

 

The growing number of abandoned properties across the country has caused property values and tax revenues to drop substantially, which in turn has led to fewer buyers and a growing number of vacant properties.

As of March 31, about 4 million homes had been empty for at least three months, a higher figure than in 2008, and about 3% of all U.S. homes.

Many cities and States, are themselves struggling with potential bankruptcy, and they’re finding it difficult to pay the firemen and policeman who are expected to deal with the increasing number of abandoned homes.

All is not doom and gloom however, and an innovative solution is now rapidly spreading across the country which entails local governments bulldozing abandoned properties, and using the newly reclaimed land for parks and playgrounds.

It’s a seemingly win-win situation, because it not only pleases local residents, but also creates jobs, and the icing on the cake is that the federal government is funding the action.

Last summer, Congress allocated $3.9 billion in emergency funds for cities to acquire and rehabilitate foreclosed properties, and a further $2 billion was assigned after Cleveland and other cities lobbied Congress.

In fact, Cleveland, which has over 10,000 abandoned homes, says it will use more than half of its $25.5 million stabilization fund to demolish more than 1,700 houses.

In addition to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minneapolis and Youngstown all say they have plans to use at least one-third of their neighborhood-stabilization funds for demolition.

Housing supply presently stands at about nine months, which is almost double the historic level of around five months, and approximately one in four home-buyers is in arrears on their mortgages, both of which sadly suggest the appearance of more and more abandoned homes, but happily, more jobs and more parks and playgrounds.

New home sales did better than expected in March.
But they still fell by 0.6% last month.

Median home-sale prices in March were around $7,000 higher than in February.
But they are still far lower than they were a year ago.

Some banks have started returning bailout money amid reports of better than expected profits in the first quarter of 2009, and the stock market has rebounded since early March.
But, the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average is still at around 60% of what is was a year ago.

Consumer confidence is rising, and consumer spending rose 2.2% in the first quarter which is the most in two years.
But businesses cut spending on equipment and software by 33.8% in the first quarter.

The administration claims that 2,000 new transportation projects have already been approved under the stimulus package.
But the construction sector lost 626,000 jobs between December 2008 and March 2009.

And whilst we’d truly love to believe that the economic crisis has bottomed out, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) estimates that the global economy will contract by 1.3% in 2009 and the U.S. economy by 2.8% which would be the most since 1946.

Read the rest of this entry »