Excerpt:
Bulldoze: The New Way To Foreclose
By STEPHEN GANDEL | Time.com – 6 hrs ago
Banks have a new remedy to America's ailing housing market: Bulldozers.
There are nearly 1.7 million homes in the U.S. in some state of foreclosure. Banks already own some of these homes and will soon have repossessed many more. Many housing economists worry that near constant stream of home sales from banks could keep housing prices down for years to come. But what if some of those homes never hit the market.
Increasingly, it appears banks are turning to demolition teams instead of realtors to rid them of their least valuable repossessed homes. Last month, Bank of America announced plans to demolish 100 foreclosed homes in the Cleveland area. The land is then going to be donated back to the local government authorities. BofA says the recent donations in Cleveland are part of a larger plan to rid itself of its least saleable properties, many of which, according to a company spokesperson, are worth less than $10,000. BofA has already donated 100 homes in Detroit and 150 in Chicago, and may add as many as nine more cities by the end of the year.
(LIST: Top 10 Most Affordable Cities for Renters) And BofA is not alone. A number of banks are ramping up their efforts not just to rid themselves of their unwanted homes, but to fully dispose of them. Fannie Mae has a program to sell houses to local municipalities for around a few hundred dollars. Wells Fargo has donated 800 homes to be demolished since 2009. JPMorgan Chase says it was one of the first banks to begin donating houses it couldn't sell, or didn't think were repairable. Since 2008, the JPMorgan has donated or sold at a discount 1,900 houses to city or county officials.
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