Foreclosed Homes In Ohio

Wells Fargo, Bank of America donate foreclosed and abandoned properties to ...

"These donations are very important in regards to our mission," Frangos said, "which is to preserve neighborhoods and eliminate immediate blights.

"What the two banks have done also sends a message to other financial institutions . . . that this is the right thing for them to do."

Frangos said that such partnerships provide the Land Bank with more resources to tackle the issues of blight created by foreclosure and abandonment.

Wells Fargo has donated 26 properties -- with more coming -- and $127,000 to help the land bank demolish them.

Bank of America said it will donate up to 100 vacant properties.

Frangos said that while homes on many of the properties are likely to be demolished, some will be renovated or used differently.

"On the West Side of Cleveland, we gave land to certain churches to expand their parking," he said. "In South Euclid, we created some urban gardens. In some cases, neighbors wanted to expand their properties. "

The nonprofit Cuyahoga Land Bank was championed by former Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis as a means to help fight the decline of real estate prices in the county.

Frangos said the land bank, formally known as the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., has now acquired nearly 1,200 properties since its inception in 2009.

Morally wrong? Hmm... I recall a time when Bank of America went into a frenzy after further market declination and hiked up the interest rates on the homeowners to an unaffordable rate. Then when the homeowner could no longer make their payments, BoA foreclosed on them further damaging the market, leaving people out on the street and then had the audacity to take billions of dollars in bailout money from people like you and me. The 'morality' argument is such a joke.

@clevelandwillrise...the common people just learned how to do something that the upper crust has known how to do for years...when you're underwater, walk away...I am sure that is the minority however, in case you havn't noticed, folks are being laid off, and having wages and hours cut...sometimes you cannot keep up and you have to let it go...has nothing to do with morals.

The only reason they're donating the properties is so that the bank doesn't have to take care of the properties. They own the properties and leave them to rot, while driving down the property values in the area. Yes, they were foreclosed and yes, someone skipped out of their obligation; however, the bank(s) don't bother to do basic property maintenance so that the rest of the neighborhood doesn't get dragged down in values. Try to sell a property that has a house that has been foreclosed on your street, where the grass hasn't been mowed and the property is boarded up.

Report: Big Banks Leaving Abandoned, Foreclosed Homes in Ohio ...

National People’s Action released a report  on Monday that shows the extent of foreclosures in Ohio, one of the states hit hardest by the national housing crisis. The three-city study projects that about one in every 10 homes in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus have received a foreclosure filing since the onset of the national financial crisis in 2007, and that black homeowners were hit especially hard. The homes that banks took have also sat unsold, further depressing the neighborhoods’ economic outlook.

The rate of foreclosures reported in the study area is equal to more than one home falling into foreclosure for every city block, on average, across the three cities since the beginning of 2009. Roughly half of these foreclosure filings were made by the country’s largest banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America Wells Fargo, Citibank and US Bank. 

The report also found that in the study area, about 40 percent of all homes lost to foreclosure were repossessed by one of these big banks, at rates especially high in African-American communities. Foreclosed homes becoming bank-owned property occurs three and a half times more often in majority African-American areas when compared to neighborhoods with low African-American populations.

Foreclosed homes that sit unsold—held by banks that refuse to market them at their actual, lower value—also exacerbate the problems of housing vacancy in urban communities. The increase in bank-owned properties in the study area created an estimated 10 to 30 percent increase in already high home vacancy rates in impacted neighborhoods of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus.

Colorlines has previously reported on the disproportionate impact of subprime lending and foreclosures on communities of color, and Ohio’s hardest hit communities tell a similar story. The report finds that foreclosure filings in the Ohio cities were, on average, almost three times more concentrated in communities of color than in majority white areas.

These high rates of foreclosure are not only devastating for the affected homeowners and their families, but also impacts their entire communities. For one thing, foreclosures deplete the local tax base. The foreclosures in the study area will cost local government an estimated $7.8 million in direct expenses, and $30 million in lost property tax revenue. Home property owners in the three cities studied also face an estimated total loss of $1.6 billion in home property values.

Community Solutions for the Prevention of & Management of Foreclosures: Congressional Field Hearing

Congressional Record, V, 153, Part 7, April 18, 2007 to April 26, 2007

Revitalizing Foreclosed Properties with Land Banks

How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup-Property Preservation Business, Earn Up to A Six-Figure Income Cleaning Out Foreclosed Homes

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