Cuyahoga County has lost more than 100 thousand houses to foreclosure, since the beginning of 2000.
Many are eventually abandoned - and some deteriorate and must be demolished. Owners won't pay those costs, so taxpayers do - at a rate about $7,000 per structure.
The county land bank has finalized a plan where it will be awarded ownership of some of those houses. It is the first such deal struck with the nation's largest holder of mortgages - Fannie Mae.
Jim Rokakis is the county treasurer.
TREASURER JIM ROKAKIS:
"They have agreed to stop selling low value properties to speculators and flippers. Instead, distressed properties valued at $25,000 or less, are transferred to the Land Bank - for one dollar."
Besides transferring property titles, Fannie Mae will pay the local land bank 3500 dollars for each structure toward demolition or rehabilitation costs. Rokakis says the land bank is taking in about 30 houses a month from Fannie Mae, and the number is rising.
The current land bank holdings of 200 properties could easily reach 6 or 700 by year's end, and would be available for purchase by rehabbers, non-profits, or to people who would want to live in the homes themselves.
Another deal still in the works would allow the land bank to acquire Fannie Mae judgments... an action that would get nuisance properties off the market up to six months sooner than is currently possible.
ROKAKIS:
"That six months difference in obtaining one of these properties in a distressed state, in a distressed community, can mean the difference between a house being rehabilitated, versus a house having to be torn down."
Rokakis says this program could help stabilize home prices in affected neighborhoods.
Rick Jackson, 90.3.
