PROPERTY PRESERVATION: “GIT R DONE!”

With the rise in foreclosures, there’s also been a rise in controversy regarding the industries that service foreclosures, such as property preservation businesses. In my recent article, “Property Preservation: A Tale of Two Carolinas,” one online piece I cited stirred up a whole hornet’s nest of debate.

The article, “What’s Left Behind,” was posted on the political Salon.com website on September 30th and you can view it here. It was written by a woman whose boyfriend does foreclosure trash outs. She ended up working alongside him and, truth to be told, ended up enjoying the adventure of it.

188 letters were posted in response to this article, many of them calling the woman and her boyfriend all kinds of vile names because they were part of the foreclosure process. To quote one that I can repeat in mixed company: “Listen, honey, you are the bad guys – you’re vultures.”

Fortunately, the majority of the posters seem to realize that this is a job that has to be done. For example:

“We need more people willing to come in and do what needs to be done to help clean up the mortgage mess on all levels. There are neighborhoods that are cesspools now thanks to people trashing their houses, and abandoning swimming pools to turn into mosquito breeding grounds. Someone has to clean this up.”

“I’m not sure what makes the posters here so angry about what she’s doing for a living. I honestly don’t think she needs a witness so much as she needs to be a witness, and for that she has my thanks.”

Let’s be clear. Foreclosed homes can not only quickly turn into an eyesore and keep a neighborhood’s property values down, but they also can become an extreme safety hazard as well. For example, at the moment, there is concern in the Atlanta area over some flooded vacant homes, not yet serviced by property preservation companies, that now have enormous mold problems and may have become inhabitable here)

Performing property preservation helps homes get back to a safe and saleable condition. And it’s not property preservation companies that are deciding foreclosures need to take place. They are just who gets called in to do a necessary and sometimes unpleasant job.

We take pride in training our franchisees at REO RESQ™ to get that job done correctly and professionally – to obtain the best possible outcome for both REO sellers and those who end up buying the homes. Visit us at www.REORESQ.com to find out more about us and what we do.

As Seen In: