http://www.parsonsgroup.com/home-stripping-crimes-on-the-rise-as-foreclosures-increase/
The article tells the stories slightly different than what I have heard in my community with short-sales, but it’s the same concept. The situation I have heard this that people were buying or building homes they could not afford using a mortgage. Once they buy or start building their nice house, they buy the best hard wood floors/ expensive tile patterns/ granite countertops /etc to match their nice house. People justified their big spending, because they saw these luxury products as an investment in their property that will increase the property value if they ever want to sell their house in the future. A few years or so down the line, they can’t keep up with their mortgages and the house is foreclosed. Now picture yourself in this situation. If a builder/contractor offered you thousands of dollars to have their workers strip all those luxury goods out of your house, it makes sense to you since you are in debt and the bank is going to take you home anyway. As the debtor to bank, you see not stripper your property as letting the bank take even more of your money. What the contractor/builder will then do is hold on to the materials they stripper and resell it to the next person who buys the house since everything already matches the measurements and style of the house.
Complete Fraud!
This is so annoying! This makes me the most angry, that these people will stand by and watch consumers spend money they don't have. Then again we should know better, we need to definitely educate ourselves on home ownership and our budget, we need to control our "big spending" urges so we can afford to live, and not get screwed over. Sadly, I am sending this article to a friend of mine who has recently been through this experience. Thanks Bianca!
ReplyDeleteThis is only one problem that the real-estate market is running into. People are also, with increasing frequency, simply destroying their homes before they are foreclosed on. I spent all summer looking at foreclosed homes and people got pretty creative. Not only would residence strip the home but some would scratch walls, make very intentional holes, or in one case soaked the walls with water to allow mold to grow. After seeing the huge cost this imposes on everyone to everyone from banks to potential buyers, I feel that people that do these sort of things should be sent to jail for any charge someone can make fit to these actions.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, your own finances are your responsibility- that makes the sort of destruction Zach mentions even more unacceptable. The system was unfair, but you placed yourself within it; at least have the good grace and maturity to acknowledge your own level of fault in the situation and move on as an adult, not a child destroying the toy so no one else can use it either.
ReplyDelete