HUD STILL MISSING THE PROPERTY PRESERVATION OPPORTUNITY

A few weeks ago, I gave a big thumbs-up to HUD for beginning to acknowledge that they need to speed up the property preservation process to handle foreclosure homes a lot faster.

A recent article in “The Cleveland Plain Dealer” makes it plain that HUD’s continuing bureaucratic dysfunction is causing a lot of pain in local neighborhoods.

HUD, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, ends up owning homes when mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Authority go into foreclosure. More often than not, these homes sit empty in disrepair – property preservation companies and foreclosure contractors are not employed by the government to fix them up.

Not only that, but cities and local governments are helpless to do anything about these homes, because they’re owned by the Federal government, which “outranks” them.

In the Cleveland area, HUD has owned over 2000 homes in the last few years alone. They often sell these homes – again, without having any property preservation work done on them – to absentee landlords and speculators who have no obligation to keep the home up. HUD merely sells properties as is, without repairs, and generally places no conditions on buyers. And once a property is sold, the agency considers its responsibilities at an end.

Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, finally got so upset about one HUD house that was falling apart that it went ahead and illegally razed the home!

For a different take on how government action can actually help this kind of situation, please check out my article, “Property Preservation Pays Off for Florida County.” (Lindsay, please link to REORESQ Nov09 Art 2 here) Pasco County in Florida has used Federal dollars to buy foreclosed homes and hired property preservation companies to fix them up themselves, doubling the property value of many of these homes.

Same situation – much more effectively handled on the local level. At some point, REO Sellers and the federal government will realize that the faster property preservation and mortgage field service contractors are put to work on a foreclosed home, the better for everyone involved.

Please remember, Property Preservation is the biggest foreclosure business opportunity around – and will be for some time. If you want to start a property preservation company, our nationwide franchise, REO ResQ™, will get you completely trained and up and running with your own business in a matter of weeks.

Our incredibly affordable franchisee fees will be going up after the first of the year – so I invite you to at least check out this fantastic opportunity. Visit us at www.REORESQ.com to find out more about us and what we can do for you.

As Seen In: