Nature Reclaiming Abandoned Houses in Detroit

Posted by Alex in Home & Garden on September 2, 2009 at 12:46 am

Across many cities in the United States, hundreds of thousands of foreclosed and abandoned homes turned some neighborhoods into urban blight … but nowhere is the effect as acutely felt as in Detroit.

Sweet Juniper blog has an interesting post about how nature is now reclaiming some of those abandoned houses. They use the description "feral houses," which given the condition they are in, seem very appropriate:

I’ve seen "feral" used to describe dogs, cats, even goats. But I have wondered if it couldn’t also be used to describe certain houses in Detroit. Abandoned houses are really no big deal here. Some estimate that there are as many as 10,000 abandoned structures at any given time, and that seems conservative. But for a few beautiful months during the summer, some of these houses become "feral" in every sense: they disappear behind ivy or the untended shrubs and trees planted generations ago to decorate their yards. The wood that framed the rooms gets crushed by trees rooted still in the earth. The burnt lime, sand, gravel, and plaster slowly erode into dust, encouraged by ivy spreading tentacles in its endless search for more sunlight.

Link – via NOTCOT

Previously on Neatorama: 100 Abandoned Houses (also in Detroit)

 
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Psst! There's a Real Estate Boom (Yes, a Boom) in Phoenix, Arizona

Posted by Alex in Money & Finance, Travel & Places on May 24, 2009 at 12:54 pm

After the big real estate bust in Phoenix, Arizona, a new trend is afoot: a boom in the market for foreclosed homes, where investors buy properties then lend it back to the (former) owners turned renters:

With this sweltering desert city enduring one of the largest tumbles in housing prices for any urban area since the Depression, there is an unrelenting stream of foreclosures to choose from. On some days, hundreds are offered for sale at the auctions that take place on the plaza in front of the county courthouse.

There is also a large supply of foreclosed families who can no longer qualify for a loan. And that is prompting a flood of investors like Mr. Jarvis, who wants to turn as many of these people as possible into rent-paying tenants in the houses they used to own.

Real estate got just about everyone into trouble in Phoenix, and the thinking seems to be that real estate is going to get everyone out.

The low end of the real estate market here — and in some equally hard-hit places like inland California and coastal Florida — is becoming as wild as anything during the boom.

David Streitfeld of the New York Times has more: Link

(Photo: Joshua Lott / NY Times)

 
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Cemetery in Foreclosure

Posted by Alex in Money & Finance, Pictures, Travel & Places on May 13, 2009 at 1:48 am

The funeral industry is usually recession proof. After all, as Arvin Starrett, spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association, said "The honest-to-goodness truth of the matter is that everybody does die."

So it goes to show how bad the current economic situation has become: a cemetery on Highway 86 in Imperial, California, is in foreclosure!

Annika Mengisen of Freakonomics Blog has the answer to the question I’m sure you’re all thinking of: will the …, um, occupants be evicted? Link

 
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VideoSift Clips of the Week

Posted by Alex in VideoSift on March 6, 2009 at 6:12 pm

(Links open in a new browser window/tab)

Excessive Ping Pong Score Celebration
Footballers do it, soccer players do it, so why not celebrate your score in ping pong? Here's Adam Bobrow's take on how to excessively celebrate in ping pong (don't miss the score at the end of the clip)

Link

Metal Grandma
Think that heavy metal is only for the young? This grandma is waaay more metal than anyone else in this concert. Go Nana!

Link

What Happens to Stuff Left in a Foreclosed House?
Someone has to clean up after homeowners were evicted from their foreclosed houses... and given the current economic situation, business is booming for the "trash out crew." Link

Is this the Face of the Young Leonardo da Vinci?
When Italian science journalist Piero Angela was looking through da Vinci's work, he noticed an image of a nose - upon closer look, it may just be the face of a young Leonardo.

Link

How many camels fit in a Subaru?
The answer, apparently, is at least two!

Count for yourself: Link

For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.

 
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3 Little Words That Stopped Foreclosure: "Produce The Note"

Posted by Alex in Money & Finance, Politics on February 25, 2009 at 2:21 pm

For homeowners caught in the nation’s housing collapse, having their homes foreclosed is like a nightmare that they can’t fight … or can they?

Chris Hoyer, a Tampa, Florida, lawyer told homeowners that there are three simple words that they can say to stop the foreclosure process, or at least delay it for a while: produce the note.

Kathy Lovelace lost her job and was about to lose her house, too. But then she made a seemingly simple request of the bank: Show me the original mortgage paperwork.

And just like that, the foreclosure proceedings came to a standstill.

Lovelace and other homeowners around the country are managing to stave off foreclosure by employing a strategy that goes to the heart of the whole nationwide mess.

During the real estate frenzy of the past decade, mortgages were sold and resold, bundled into securities and peddled to investors. In many cases, the original note signed by the homeowner was lost, stored away in a distant warehouse or destroyed.

Persuading a judge to compel production of hard-to-find or nonexistent documents can, at the very least, delay foreclosure, buying the homeowner some time and turning up the pressure on the lender to renegotiate the mortgage.

Link

(Photo: Chris O’Meara/AP)

 
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