60 Minutes Piece on Cleveland Ohio Razing of Homes

[Roadmaster49]

Did anyone else see the 60 Minutes piece where Cleveland Ohio is tearing down homes in neighborhoods and giving the lots to neighbors with homes not in foreclosure?

I found one point interesting. I used to work for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and we had an REO [[Real Estate Owned) website.

The 60 Minutes piece stated that the mortgage companies are not buying these Cleveland homes for tax sales prices. They don't even want them and are not maintaining them for resale. [[No duh, I know) Hence, the razing of the homes.

4-5 years ago while at WF I searched our database www.reopas.com for homes in Detroit and the list stretched to 18 pages! So while watching this 60 Minutes show I checked the website in real time and there were 2 pages and about 15 homes.

15 homes! Wow. 4 years ago = maybe 2000 homes just with Wells Fargo. This means WF has DUMPED all this property previously worth hundreds of millions of dollars, lost tax revenue. I guess these lots and abandoned homes now belong to the city of Detroit.

Tearing some of them down seems an IDEAL solution in some mcases. Who doesn't want a double lot? In a normal city/metro situation it is crowded by it's very definition. I live in a small town in Iowa partially for that reason - small town, big lots, trees, gardens etc.

Seems like a GREAT idea Cleveland has, to give lots to neighbors. No more crack house, better sight lines and openness and gardens. I think most people agree Detroit is not going back to the 1950's Detroit, so make a new city.

Bad part for me was I saw a LOT of cool Tudors and Bungalows, and Traditionals in the old days of the REO website and I sure wanted to buy a home. Now, those days are gone....