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Here is your open thread for the weekend beginning Friday September 14th, 2012. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
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http://www.nwcn.com/news/washington/169734036.html
“The City of Auburn is taking action on bank-owned properties that are not being maintained.
Auburn has created an online Wall of Shame to put pressure on banks holding mortgages on these houses. Many of the houses have neglected front yards; some have moldy or interior walls. The site lists the properties that need work, including a picture, and names the banks that hold the property and contact information.”
City website is here:
http://www.auburnwa.gov/asp/abandons/
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RE: ChrisM @ 1 – But I thought the REO inventory was almost gone?
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RE: Pegasus @ 2 –
Ooh, 19 houses; and that’s just in Auburn. You can smell the tsunami.
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I wonder if the State, County and Local City is willing to cut people a property tax break if they buy these properties?
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RE: Pegasus @ 2 –
They appear to be listing all of those in the name of the “Mortgage Holder” and not the owner of the property. I just checked a few and the ones I checked were not foreclosures or bank owned.
Why would they list the Owner’s Lender vs the Owner?
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By ChrisM @ 1:
I’m not sure how accurate that list is. I checked out three of them and “Realist” still shows them as being owned by individuals. Realist does lag by three weeks or so, so it could be situations where the bank only recently took ownership (but might not yet even have the right to possession, which is roughly the sale three week period as the Realist lag).
But the real kicker is Realist didn’t even show any of the three in foreclosure! I wonder if they are just tagging the underlying mortgage holder who doesn’t even own the property yet?
Edit: I read Ardell’s post after posting mine. Not sure whether we picked the same properties (I did the first one and last two), but seemingly Auburn has some problems with the claims it is making.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 6 – I’ve now checked a total of eight properties, and the eighth one I checked was the first that was actually in foreclosure, but not yet foreclosed. Two of the eight were properties with current listings with pending offers, so clearly not abandoned.
I think part of the problem is the King5 article describes the properties as being bank owned, but that’s not the claim the City of Auburn website makes. They claim the properties are just abandoned. Given that two have current listings, even that claim is suspect, but it does raise the issue of when should a bank step in and protect its security? Here except on the one I found in foreclosure we don’t even know the owners have stopped making payments! Are banks supposed to drive by all the houses they have a security interest in and make sure the lawn is mowed?
That leads to the next issue–assuming the properties are actually abandoned, perhaps this is yet another unintended consequence of making the non-judicial foreclosure process longer and more complicated. The time between the first default and a Notice of Trustee’s sale is now much longer. Where the owner has abandoned the property that serves absolutely no purpose and provides no benefit, but could cause houses to languish longer not being maintained.
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The discussion in the other thread about Losh’s experience got me to think about attorney real estate agents and Redfin, of all things.
I am hardly the only attorney who is also a real estate agent. There are a handful of others who post here, and I’ve run into a number of others. But they are the exception rather than the rule.
Attorneys in this state have much less involvement with real estate matters than in some other states, mainly due to our escrow system. Most consumer level closings here are handled by what you might call a limited practice officer working through a non-attorney firm, rather than through a law firm. So although as an attorney I dealt with dozens of real estate transactions over the years, actually doing the closings was something that never occurred to me. In another state it probably would have, and it would have been more typical for an attorney firm to handle the closing.
That gets me to Redfin. Early on one of my thoughts about them was that they did so little in the transaction that one of their biggest concerns wasn’t probably the Realtor organizations, but instead the Washington State Bar Association. I saw that though as a slight concern, not because the law necessarily favored what they were then doing, but instead because the attorneys in this state likely didn’t care what Redfin was doing. Attorneys here don’t get involved in many consumer real estate transactions, so they didn’t see Redfin as a threat. Redfin though doesn’t operate only in Washington state.
Over the years Redfin has offered more and more services, which Ray complains results in them increasing their commission to what he sees as an unreasonable level (I’d disagree). Some, if not most of those changes were probably consumer driven. My thought this morning though was whether any of those changes were due to pressure in other states from their bar associations. As Redfin’s service model is currently configured, I see almost no threat from the WSBA. Redfin is providing a lot of brokerage services to their clients beyond just writing up an offer, which makes a big difference in the legal analysis. Maybe that was just a side benefit. Has anyone though heard of limited service real estate firms getting pressure from bar associations in other states?
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