HUD and Land Bank Strike Deal to Clear Blighted Homes
Posted: Friday, July 2, 2010
Download MP3Cuyahoga County's Land Bank has struck a deal with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to take ownership of hundreds of foreclosed and abandoned homes for as little as a hundred dollars each. Ideastream intern Michelle Kanu reports it's a big step in helping the county recover from the foreclosure crisis.
The deal expands to county-wide a previous one that offered HUD-owned homes to non-profits just in the city of Cleveland, or to the city itself. HUD made headlines a week ago when it let that program expire, but now this new arrangement provides a new and better tool - says Gus Frangos, president of the Cuyahoga County Land Bank. He believes the deal will help the county revitalize neighborhoods and enable HUD to reduce its stock of low value homes.
FRANGOS: “The thrust of it is to try to identify these low value properties in HUD’s inventory and to try to prevent them from getting into the hands of flippers and speculators, and just continuing the cycle of land speculation which just sort of corrupts the comparables for all the surrounding good properties.”
Under the new agreement, HUD will give the land bank first dibs to buy its homes valued at less than $20,000 for 100 dollars each. The county will get a discount of as high as 50 percent discount on homes valued from $20,000 to $100, 000 - even higher if they’re on the market more than six months.
After purchasing the homes, the land bank may decide to restore those that are still in decent shape, and demolish the dilapidated ones.
Frangos anticipates the land Bank will acquire 700 to 1000 foreclosed properties in the coming year.
Tags
Economy, Facing the Mortgage Crisis, Government/Politics, Other, Housing/Real Estate
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