House Keeping - of sorts



FNC - 18Oct2010 map of housing forclosures



So here is a quick shot map from Fox News of the number of home foreclosures which have occured in the last 18 months ... the reason this is significant is because the banks are sitting on these houses and losing money ... so there is a concern that the banks will dump these houses into the housing market just to recoup part of the loss.

You would think this would make a 'buyers market' but what it will actually do is drive down the property values of houses which are NOT in foreclosure ... it would cause too many houses on the market ...

it is like a catch-22 for the banks ...

if they sit on the houses waiting for the housing market to build up so they can recoup their money, they start to lose money on upkeep (although usually these assessments show up on the sale price of the homes) ... but if they dump them now they will not get what they invested.

Its too bad that they can't rent the houses during the down times ... but that would make the banks 'landlords' and I don't think they are allowed to do that.