Foreclosures in neighborhood (Tampa, St. Petersburg, Seminole: bank owned, short sales, real estate) - Tampa Bay - Florida (FL) -Tampa - St. Petersburg - Clearwater - City-Data Forum

Tampa1228 · 04-10-2010, 11:46 AM

I am so frustrated. Sorry I need a place to vent!

We live in a non-deed restricted, non HOA area near Lowry Park Zoo, right outside Seminole Heights. Not the best area but I digress. We have 4 foreclosures on our street, one right next door. Finally, the people moved out - were finally evicted by the bank after living there for free for 3 years. Well, they took the fence, but not the posts and the posts are cemented in -and they took everything that was not nailed down. Obviously for spite against the bank. They even took off the french doors on the back of the house so now the house sits wide open. My concern is cats and lord knows what else over running the house. The house already looks like a mess with the lawn being overgrown and full of weeds and now the fence, doors, etc. Does anyone know how long it will take the bank to even think about looking into this mess? My guess is MONTHS if not longer.

housingcrashsurvivor · 04-10-2010, 01:17 PM

It is an outrage. Sadly I fear prosecution of such deadbeats will come as swiftly for them as it has for their cohort banksters, appraisers, mortgage brokers & real estate agents and government employees who all knowingly did their very best to destroy our neighborhoods & country so they could collect their one time fees & salaries. Those who didn't know what they were doing, or thought they were actually helping the system by overinflating prices, excluded from my rantings, of course.

Though I've very few foreclosures in this stable neighborhood, I've a ton of them in my south Florida area. I just received a full price offer on my house there but fear the foreclosures will be used as comps so that the buyer's bank will have a reason to kill this sale and thereby not have to write a loan it doesn't want to do anyway, but that it only wants to give the appearance of trying to accomplish so it can continue getting free public money from the government.

That town helped to attack your problem early on by setting up a separate fund to keep abandoned properties in at least reasonable shape. Staff has taken it upon themselves (at our expense, but well worth it) to mow lawns (and lien properties for the work done) and pick up trash. The result being that even abandoned homes look presentable.

Here, I have good code enforcement though I do not think there is a separate fund. But I just had code over to get permission to cut a limb when the officer told me the city was keeping an eye on one of my neighbors who has vacated a house we presume will go into foreclosure. I was assured that the city will notify the owners (banks, whoever) and require them to maintain the property.

But I already have it in my plan to ride my little tractor over and cut the lawn at least 30 or more feet up into its yard from the street so that it does not get to look too terrible. I think I read a while back that the Bentley poster does the same or has someone in his area doing the same thing in his neighborhood.

In times like these you need to take things into your own hands. You should discuss this with your neighbors. Call code. Try to get the bank to maintain the property. If they do not, then far be it from me to suggest that you tresspass, but someone needs to cover up that opening and to keep the yard from getting totally trashed or the rest of your neighborhood will suffer.

Oh, and if the previous owner drives by to have a look I will not tell on you if you egg his car.

Realtytac.com shows 150 distressed properties (bank owned & preforeclosures) on April 10, 2010 in the pictured area surrounding Lowry Park....

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy30/housingcrashsurvivor/lowry-park-area-foreclosure.jpg (broken link)

algia · 04-10-2010, 01:59 PM

Actually, if you know which bank it is, you can call them and they will send out a team to clean up and most of all lock up the place.

algia · 04-10-2010, 02:03 PM

I have another question tho......if these ppl choose to stop making payments & foreclose, how in the world do they get to rent somewhere else? per what I knew, having a foreclosure behind you, pretty much kills every single way to rent....am I missing something?

Because what makes little sense is why would a homeowner stop making payments then have the money to put a deposit to rent? how are they doing that if they lost a job? I am not getting this at all.....I knew that when you have bad credit for whatever reason, your deposit is larger.....so how is saving for a large deposit to rent better than making those mortgage payments? and keep your house?

Tampa1228 · 04-10-2010, 05:19 PM

housingcrashsurvivor - WOW! My street is in that photo you posted and there is only one foreclosure showing. So that thing isn't even accurate and look how many there are. Scary.

algia - I agree with you. What happened in the case of these people next door, it was a couple probably in their 50's with a 20 something year old daughter. They bought the house for $220k at the height of the market when the house had sold for $132k just 2 years prior. No offense, but they could not afford that house. They didn't speak English but we were able to figure out the man did odd jobs and the wife was a maid at a hotel. Well, it didn't take long for them to foreclose, they were served in 12/08 and the older couple moved out a few months later. Where? Who knows! Maybe they moved before the foreclosure showed up on their credit. But they left their lovely (insert sarcasm) daughter here who moved in her thug boyfriend and his friends and basically they ran a chop shop for waverunners out of the back yard for a year. We called the bank (BOA) to let them know they were not taking care of the house, bank told us they didn't care. Finally they got served eviction papers a few days ago and frankly we were surprised. I figured they'd let them live there another 2 years because this house (and area) is not expensive. Well, curiosity got the best of us and we went over there because we were friends with the former owners years ago. They took toilets, sinks, vanities, fridge, washer, dryer, you name it - everything. Its disgusting.

Sadly, I think the foreclosure crisis is only going to get worse. Property values are dropping like crazy so more people than not are going to owe way more than what the homes are worth.

Its sad really. All for corporate greed.

bentlebee · 04-10-2010, 06:29 PM

REALTOR® Magazine-Daily News-Owners Who Refinanced May Owe IRS

People who cashed out refinances, or had part of their mortgage debt forgiven when they sold their homes through short sales, will probably owe the IRS a big payback.

In 2007, Congress passed the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Act, but that doesn’t let everyone off the hook.

Here are exceptions to the rule:

• Anyone who did a cash-out refinance and spent the money on something not housing related, then got in trouble and lost their home to a foreclosure or short sale, will owe the IRS as if the money from the refinance were earned income.

• The IRS will forgive tax liability only on money from home-equity loans that was spent to improve the property.

• Anyone who lost a vacation home or investment property to foreclosure or short sale will owe Uncle Sam.

• Multi-million dollar homes — lost or sold — are always subject to tax.

---------------------------

Just wait till the banks are thru with the foreclosures and have time on their hands and will go after the ones who think they could live for free all these years...you know the one who laughs at last has the hardest one...that is a saying we have in Dutch

In the beginnning we thought it was sad to see what happened but now we are all, almost giving the deadbeats a warming farewell, and they know we like to see them go, lately they all left in the middle of the night while they all were so confortable of showing their wealth during the day and thinking we all were naiive but all knew they didn't pay.

They day after they leave we call waste aid and have their trashcan taken away, some were not even done with getting everything out, but we were sick of them having their trash can out in the driveway 24/7....and lately 3 homes have been auctioned off so less empty homes are foreseen.

bentlebee · 04-10-2010, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by algia

I have another question tho......if these ppl choose to stop making payments & foreclose, how in the world do they get to rent somewhere else? per what I knew, having a foreclosure behind you, pretty much kills every single way to rent....am I missing something?

Because what makes little sense is why would a homeowner stop making payments then have the money to put a deposit to rent? how are they doing that if they lost a job? I am not getting this at all.....I knew that when you have bad credit for whatever reason, your deposit is larger.....so how is saving for a large deposit to rent better than making those mortgage payments? and keep your house?

They rent before they have the foreclosure on their record. I have a tenant like that who wanted to stay in his home and was denied to refi. He had no clue what his mortgage really was about and when he found out he wanted to change it, but the bank didn't allow it although he could afford a reasonable mortgage and didn't mind to get a longer term, but was denied. So he told me what happened, but I already knew since I had read his mortgage paper online before we met, after he had given me his info...so his story matched up what was recorded.

He didn't want to stay and live too long for free and was turning in the keys to the bank and is now renting from me. A family member of him had a similar mortgage and did a short sale and found out later that the bank had put it on his credit report as a foreclosure so my tenant said he didn't want to wait too long if the bank still was going to damage his credit score and rather had it over and move on. They made my property so nice, it is unbelievable and they know they will have a hard time getting to rent else where due to their credit situation, but they can afford to pay the rent and I have so far the best tenant ever...he treats it like he owns the place

TampaKaren · 04-10-2010, 06:42 PM

Tampa1228, the obvious thing to do is contact Code Enforcement for the City of Tampa, You can do this online at TampaGov.net. Keep in mind they are short staffed and overwhelmed. It will probably be 2 weeks before they can respond. In the meantime, keep your distance. The local governments are working with the banks to report problems such as you have next door.

housingcrashsurvivor · 04-12-2010, 04:14 AM

Nearly 17 percent of Tampa homeowners three months behind on mortgage - St. Petersburg Times

"Nearly 17 percent of Tampa Bay homeowners haven't paid their mortgages for at least three months....Florida's 90-day delinquency rate was even worse at 19.39 percent. The U.S. rate was 8.78 percent."

Tampa1228 · 04-25-2010, 06:07 AM

Thanks everyone again for the replies. I did send an email to code enforcement over the weekend about 2 weeks ago, and we left for vacation on that Sunday. When we came back, other neighbors told us code enforcement had been out that week and made the previous owner come put a sliding glass door on the back of the house to cover that gaping hole and they also cleaned up the backyard a bit. So thanks for that suggestion TampaKaren!

Its still a bit of an eyesore but MUCH better and I am thrilled that the people living there are gone. Now we'll see what ends up moving in there some day. HA!