Supply, Demand And Homes Unspoken For
Readers suggested a topic on inventory. “Shadow inventory: How big? How bad? Deferred maintenance? Is it all legal? Collusion? What can we do? How many houses in your hood? Who’s responsible? Perhaps this is the game the banks are playing: pay the taxes, but don’t take title and let the ‘owner’ shoulder the liability. This let’s them, ‘wait to see what happens.’”
A reply, “Certainly not paying property taxes WILL get a property seized. Governments being what they are, it is my understanding that property tax liens ARE superior to mortgages. It used to be considered a slow process, but compared to the current foreclosure speed it it could seem pretty rapid.”
To which was said, “Not true of the property abutting us on Cape Cod. It was abandoned by a developer after putting in the foundation. People used it to dump their electronics instead there of paying a fee at dumps. It had been abandoned for years and the town said there was nothing they could do about it. I know there were years of accumulated back taxes involved and the town claimed they couldn’t find the owner. Yet for some reason, they wouldn’t/couldn’t seize. 10 years later, it’s still just an abandoned junk yard.”
One had this, “I’d like to see an updating of adverse possession laws. Basically, if the owner does not maintain a building and pay property taxes, it should be taken by someone who will. For properties in small town and rural locations which had aging boomers as the potential market, perhaps the aging boomers — now with retirement plans downsized to a subsistence lifestyle.”
“Free housing. No need to commute. A vegetable garden. Perhaps do it your self solar panels from Home Depot. Just need a few Social Security bucks for heat, property taxes, and internet service, and you’re good to go.”
A reply, “So, you are going to set up a town commission to take applications, decide who is ‘worthy’ to receive a free house and pass them out? Might work in a place so small that everyone knows everyone else and the people who most need/deserve the free housing are obvious and could sort of be picked by consensus. What if there are more empty houses than worthy recipients?”
“What about bigger places where that sort of work would be too overwhelming for volunteers, where people don’t know everyone? So, set us some sort of government office. Accept applications. Hire people to investigate the applicants. Let the neighbors interview the possible new person, maybe? And who pays when someone comes forward and sues the town.”
Another added, “You are making this way too complicated. See ‘Oklahoma Land Run of 1889.’ The government could make a fortune by selling the TV rights.”
The Commercial Appeal. “The AIA Stalled Projects Database is somewhat like an online dating service. But it matches developers and architects with investors to rejuvenate projects needing financing. ‘I think most architects will tell you they have stalled projects,’ said Lisa Namie, principal with the prominent Memphis firm, Fleming Associates Architects.”
The Daily Inter Lake. “After two years of development, it’s open house time for the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust and its 16 houses, all former foreclosures, up for sale in Kalispell. All of the houses were empty, bank-owned foreclosures before they were bought and renovated and placed in the land trust. ‘We have one [house] closing at the end of December and another one that will be closing probably in the first quarter of 2012,’ said Marney McCleary, the acting executive director of the land trust. ‘So we still have 14 homes unspoken for.’”
From Bloomberg. “Owners of more than 14 million homes are in foreclosure, are delinquent on their mortgages or owe more than their houses are worth, creating a shadow inventory that is holding down sales and prices, RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said.”
“Moody’s Analytics Inc. expects home prices to drop about 3 percent in 2012 as more foreclosed homes go on sale, Celia Chen, one of the firm’s housing analysts, said in an interview. By midyear, the distressed share of the market — foreclosures and short sales, in which the lender agrees to a price below the mortgage balance — will begin to shrink and average prices will start to rebound, perhaps as much as 5 percent in 2013, she said.”
“‘By the end of next year, prices will begin to appreciate,’ Chen said. ‘The fundamental driver of normal home sales is going to improve because we expect the economy will start generating jobs by the end of next year.’”
The San Bernardino County Sun. “The so-called ’shadow inventory’ of future foreclosures may be about to fall on Southern California’s real estate markets. In San Bernardino County, foreclosure filings jumped nearly 30 percent from October to November, new numbers show. Los Angeles County’s foreclosure activity jumped 15 percent.”
“In November, the number of San Bernardino filings for notices of trustee sales rocketed 80 percent to affect 2,253 homes. Those filings signal a new influx of distressed properties, said Kat Hegg, a real estate agent at Hegg Team Realty in Fontana. ‘That means they’re getting ready for a busy January,’ she said.”
“Adam Sands, program manager of the Housing Opportunities Collaborative of the Inland Empire, said various bureaucratic delays in the oft-confusing interactions between banks and homeowners may mean a glut of foreclosures is about to be released. The Housing Opportunities Collaborative of the Inland Empire is a nonprofit that essentially exists to create events where homeowners can have face-to-face meetings with lenders, counselors and others who may be able to struggling homeowners stay in their houses, Sands said.”
“In his interactions with homeowners, Sands said he has seen much ‘foreclosure fatigue’ among those dealing with paper barriers to loan modifications.”
“The difficult loan modification process may not be for everyone, he added. A short sale, in which a home is sold for less than the amount owed on its mortgage, may be a better option for some. Short sales are also notorious for being subject to prolonged and complicated proceedings. Any homeowner faced with foreclosure needs help from several specialists to endure any attempt to stay in their home, Hegg said.”
“‘They need a professional lawyer. They need a professional IRS consultant. They need a professional real estate agent,’ she said. ‘They want their agent to be all three of these, and they are not.’”
From Reuters. “Shirley Burnell, a community activist from Oakland, California, has been trying to get her subprime loan restructured since 2007. She never missed a payment, but the adjustable rate mortgage she got in 2004 shot up to a monthly payment she could no longer afford. First she provided documents without getting any response, then she was denied in April by her servicer, Bank of America, for not providing documents it never actually asked for.”
“When asked about Burnell’s case, a bank spokesman said she was unable to qualify under ‘imminent default provisions,’ a third reason that Burnell said she had never been given. At one point, Burnell even received notice the bank would accelerate foreclosure proceedings, despite her perfect payment record and the letter itself saying the bank owed her $281.01. ‘They gave you a funky loan in the first place, and now they’re refusing to work with people to get it worked out,’ Burnell said. ‘It just keeps you upset all the time.’”
The Savannah Morning News. “When the final numbers for the year are available, we’re going to see that single family home sales in the Savannah metro area climbed by about 15 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. But we still need to see total sales increase by about 40 percent just to get back to the historical norms for the annual turnover of existing homes. And, despite a decline in listed inventory over the past year, we still need to see the number of active listings fall by about a quarter to return to historical norms.”
“The process will be hampered by a large shadow inventory. Many bank-owned properties are sitting empty but aren’t listed for sale. Many homeowners would love to sell but are waiting till the market improves. I don’t have a clear handle on the exact size of the shadow inventory, but it is substantial. Chatham County had 158 single-family home sales in November out of 2,395 listings, according to MLS data. That works out to more than 15 months of inventory at the November pace of sales.”
“Lower priced areas such as the Southside and West Chatham typically have less inventory than more expensive areas downtown and on the islands. But current inventory for the Southside and West Chatham is more than 12 months. Yes, November is a slow month for sales, but it should also be a slow month for new listings and for overall inventory. Worrisomely, November’s new listings outpaced sales in Chatham County by two to one.”
“The good news is that some homes listed for sale in the Savannah area seem fairly valued right now. Some of those homes are in desirable neighborhoods that are not overburdened with listings. Some would have positive cash flow for new buyers if they were turned into rental units. But a significant number of residential properties don’t meet any logical pricing criterion. With supply and demand so far out of whack in so many neighborhoods, we’ll continue to see widespread declines in home values.”
“Georgia generally and Savannah specifically benefited greatly from new home construction during the boom years. But now we are stuck with an excess supply of homes and other buildings. We need to figure out how to grow the local and regional economy in the absence of a construction boom.”
The Green Bay Press Gazette. “On Wednesday, belatedly, the National Association of Realtors is scheduled to issue revised numbers that show the nation’s housing bust was worse than the big real estate trade group has reported all along. The public needs to keep in mind that the Realtors group represents Realtors, not real estate buyers or sellers, and not homeowners. Realtors get paid when transactions occur. So the members of NAR have a financial interest in promoting activity.”
“This isn’t the only realm in which the trade group’s priorities haven’t jibed with the public’s. One lesson of the housing bust is that federal subsidies for residential real estate must be reduced. The housing lobby, which includes NAR, is accustomed to fighting for these subsidies. Consider the recent dust-up over government guarantees for the loans on personal McMansions.”
“Taxpayers have lost an estimated $150 billion guaranteeing mortgage loans so far — and they’re on the hook for tens of billions more. Reducing the size of federally backed loans from gigantic to only slightly less gigantic was a first step toward unwinding these costly obligations and returning the marketplace to private lenders who would price their loans according to the risks involved.”
“But what’s good for taxpayers would have been bad for Realtors — at least in the short run. So, under strong lobbying, Congress rescinded the modest cut in FHA loan guarantees through at least 2013. As a result, federal dollars still will be used to back enormous loans.”
The Knoxville News Sentinel. “I’ve often joked that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) will twist, manipulate or interpret any data series to prove that now is a great time to buy a house. Or sell a house. Or they could simply report phony data.”
“It seems that the NAR has been reporting inflated house sales figures at least since 2007. CoreLogic, an independent real estate analysis firm, accused the NAR of releasing inflated sales data. NAR spokesman Walter Malony fessed up. ‘We’re capturing some new home data that should have been filtered out. All of the data since 2007 is being revised down. Sales were weaker than people thought.’”
“‘Sales were weaker than people thought?’ That makes it sound like it was the people’s fault, not the NAR.”
“The NAR expects the adjustments to be ‘relatively minor.’ However, CoreLogic says that just the California sales data alone could have been overstated by as much as 20 percent.”
A few things about all these statistics; I think oxide first pointed out about shadow inventory, that it’s usually related in terms of months sales. But what would the months sales be if the consumer had better knowledge of this hidden inventory?
What will be the rate of sales when one or the other federal program expires? What is the true rate of sales when it’s being calculated by the sale people?
You might have heard that it will take 60 years to sell all the foreclosures in some states. That’s not gonna happen. Whoever ends up with them isn’t going to wait that long. So something will change in the equation, and that’s what buyers should consider, IMO.
“Owners of more than 14 million homes are in foreclosure, are delinquent on their mortgages or owe more than their houses are worth, creating a shadow inventory that is holding down sales and prices, RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said.”
Being “underwater” does not mean it’s shadow inventory. Are most new cars shadow inventory?
Shadow inventory does not hold prices DOWN.
The definition varies. Lot’s of UHS around here still immediately say ‘there is no shadow inventory’ the minute it’s mentioned.
“Shadow inventory does not hold prices DOWN.”
I believe the direction of the effect from a larger shadow inventory is quite unclear. Viewing shadow inventory as homes which should be on the market but aren’t suggests that a larger shadow inventory (and commensurately smaller for sale inventory) would result in higher prices.
But if the masses catch on to the fact that today’s shadow inventory will become tomorrow’s for sale inventory, then a larger shadow inventory may encourage a deflation mentality, where today’s would-be buyers are willing to wait for a better selection of homes at more affordable prices once today’s shadow inventory finally comes on to the market. This perspective suggests a larger shadow inventory may reduce current demand, pushing prices down.
I suspect you’re right, prof. But it’s going to come down to a game of chicken between sellers and buyers. How long can sellers hold out…how long are buyers willing to rent?
Buyers will rent as long as rents remain lower than PITI.
We disagree on the economics of shelter. You assess the value based on what people have paid or are currently paying. I know the value of those materials and depreciate them getting me to what I believe is the actual value plus lot and utility costs.
Not picking a fight. Just stating there are different perspectives. One from a consumer and another from mine. Lumber is the same price in Chevy Chase, MD and Frogballs, Arkansas.
To get a feel for shadow supply, I encourage people to read the LPS Mortgage Monitor…and listen to the commentary that comes with it…it’s free, and these guys see a lot of data (I wish they would share more freely state-by-state data)
After studying this, and everything else I can find, I believe that the pig is largely in the python in terms of distressed housing (ie. new distressed homes entering the foreclosure process are doing so at a more “normal” rate when viewed historically, most delinquent homes have been in the process for a long time).
The amount of shadow inventory is truly related to whether a state is judicial or non-judicial. Non-judicial states are working through their inventory of distressed homes. Judicial are doing so at a MUCH slower rate.
Some data to chew on for people:
California’s non-current rate (delinquencies and homes in the foreclosure process) has gone from more than 15% in early 2010, to about 10.5% at the last measure. “Normal” is 5% (North and South Dakota are at this level). Over the past 6 months, REO of CA homes has fallen by about 10% (the foreclosures are not simply being transferred to being delinquent to being on the books of banks). Homes are actually being sold. I don’t know what “normal” is in the way of REO…I suspect that we are a long way off from normal, but heading in the right direction. For perspective, my understanding is that there are 5-6 million mortgages in California. 10% non-current equates to about 500k homes. REO at last count is about 100k. Current sales pace in California is about 400k homes per year.
The “Shadow Inventory” in California is markedly different than that of Florida, where the non-current rate is 23% (nearly 5x normal, vs. CA’s 2x normal), and not budging. It’s a judicial state vs. CA which is non-judicial.
Another point to consider: as long as a high percentage of homes are being sold that were recently foreclosed (sold by someone who purchased at foreclosure), the data will show home price declines. The reason is simple, those buying homes at foreclosure are capital constrained, and looking to turn the money quickly (ie. churn the money, buying and selling as fast as they can), so they deliberately price the homes they recently purchased at below the comps so they will sell quickly.
I encourage any prospective buyer to do whatever they can to understand the shadow inventory in the areas in which they are seeking to purchase a home. The more the shadow inventory, the longer this foreclosure pricing dynamic will continue, and the more patient you can be. If you simply look at the data because of this dynamic, it will show continual price declines.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion on this board, but when the shadow inventory burns off, and there is a smaller percentage of homes being sold that are being sold by “flippers”, prices will rebound.
While past cycles have shown home price rebounds to be slow, housing markets have never seen the current combination of massive foreclosures (all-time highs), low interest rates (all-time lows), and virtually non-existent single-family home construction (all-time lows; the 90’s downturn still had construction of ~1MM units per year). This is a setup for severely constrained housing markets in various parts of the country.
If it is easy to add supply in your market (lax zoning laws, easy entitlement processes, abundant and cheap land), then supply can ramp up quickly in the fact of a strengthening market, and the price increases will be more subdued. If, however, it is difficult to add supply (tough entitlement processes, expensive land, etc.), there will be no pressure release, and prices will rise more quickly.
http://www.chinahush.com/2011/12/25/unfinished-villa-cluster-becomes-ghost-town/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChinaHush+%28ChinaHush%29
More photos of Chinese ghost towns, this one a “luxury villa” development. Hard landing, here we come.
Judging from the canal that runs through the middle of the empty homes in the photos, that area is a flash flood waiting to happen. Probably better if the homes remain vacant.
“flash flood waiting to happen.”
I love it when my eye/brain coordination plays tricks. I first read this as “flesh flood”, and I’m nodding my head in agreement because of the various stories about polluted water in China, and thinking about people getting their flesh dissolved if they get caught in a flood.
Then I read it again. Sheesh.
Can’t be sure, but it looks like lots of three-eyed fish floating belly-up in that canal.
The hideous waste of natural resources which enabled builders to vomit forth these dreadful structures is probably the most disheartening thing about the bubble, to me.
“So, you are going to set up a town commission to take applications, decide who is ‘worthy’ to receive a free house and pass them out? Might work in a place so small that everyone knows everyone else and the people who most need/deserve the free housing are obvious and could sort of be picked by consensus. What if there are more empty houses than worthy recipients?”
Not necessary to use a town commission to decide who is ‘worthy’; a no-reserve-price auction would do just fine.
“Owners of more than 14 million homes are in foreclosure, are delinquent on their mortgages or owe more than their houses are worth, creating a shadow inventory that is holding down sales and prices, RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said.”
“Moody’s Analytics Inc. expects home prices to drop about 3 percent in 2012 as more foreclosed homes go on sale, Celia Chen, one of the firm’s housing analysts, said in an interview. By midyear, the distressed share of the market — foreclosures and short sales, in which the lender agrees to a price below the mortgage balance — will begin to shrink and average prices will start to rebound, perhaps as much as 5 percent in 2013, she said.”
How does Celia’s Pollyanna story square with 14 million homes in shadow inventory? Got cognitive dissonance?
“But what’s good for taxpayers would have been bad for Realtors — at least in the short run. So, under strong lobbying, Congress rescinded the modest cut in FHA loan guarantees through at least 2013. As a result, federal dollars still will be used to back enormous loans.”
At least some 1%ers will be able to qualify for ‘affordable housing’ loans in amounts up to $729,750 through at least 2013.
When will lawmakers get called on the carpet for this rotten waste of taxpayer dollars?
“The NAR expects the adjustments to be ‘relatively minor.’ However, CoreLogic says that just the California sales data alone could have been overstated by as much as 20 percent.”
RAL — wherefore art thou?
Given the amount of houses involved, 20 percent is not a “relatively minor” adjustment.
But when a realtor expects their 6 percent commission, why shouldn’t I just pay 5 percent since I inadvertently overstated by 20 percent what I was willing to pay and the difference is “relatively minor” per NAR logic?
They are 100% responsible for the public reaction to this debacle as a result of their marketing and PR.
ReaItors and NAR are still advising the public to buy housing when prices are falling.
WHY?
“Housing is the biggest investment you’ll ever make” per NAR marketing. They are advising the public to make investments in assets that are falling in value.
WHY is NAR offering investment advice?
All of my local RE agents/brokers quote 5%
“Many homeowners would love to sell but are waiting till the market improves. ”
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Why? What is the “improvement” in the market they are looking for? People actually looking and buying? Prices rising? Getting back to the peak price? Getting back to their break even price?
Lets assume that it is getting back to their break even price. For a lot of people that would mean quite a substantial rise in the price. I don’t see it any time soon, but would they really sell if prices had been rising steadily and substantially for several years? Or would they start doing cash out refis again?
Lets assume that it is getting back to peak prices. Same analysis as above, but on steroids. They would keep it and start with the cash out refis.
So both of the two scenarios above require either a complete return to the bubble or a thriving economy filled with middle class buyers with good jobs and confident enough in their futures to take on a large mortagage and perhaps having saved up enough for a substantial down payment.
Waiting to sell for prices to just start rising again a little is a bot more plausible, but rising prices also seems to be a time to hold on if you are underwater, not dump. After all, if you wait a few more months you might be less underwater. But, OK, if a bunch of people put their houses on the market because of a slight bump up in prices (real prices, not a change in the median that just means a slight shift in the quality/size of the houses being sold) that is going to increase supply and put downward pressure on the prices, so that should take care of the bump up in prices pretty quickly.
That leaves the market improvement being people actually looking and buying again. It means that people have fixed up their household balance sheets and put together enough money for a downpayment and feel confident that their jobs are safe enough and perhaps expect some raises coming along in the future. They want a kid or another kid or a toe tag house or out of the apartment building where they can here the next door neighbors having sex and are ready to buy. When that happens, it means we will have not had that situation for a long time (no confidence in jobs, no improved household balance sheets, no downpayment savings, etc.) and housing will be down near its bottom for cost. WHY would anyone prefer to list a house for $160K and get several bids and get $165K than to list now for $200K and accept $190K even if the last transaction a few months ago was for $205K? You still get more money if you list now, when the market is bad and getting worse than you do by waiting for the moment of turn around.
I don’t get it.
“I don’t get it.”
Perhaps this Wikipedia entry will help clear things up:
Cargo cult
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Cargo cult (disambiguation).
Ceremonial cross of John Frum cargo cult, Tanna island, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), 1967
A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth (the “cargo”) of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices. Cult members believe that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors. Cargo cults developed primarily in remote parts of New Guinea and other Melanesian and Micronesian societies in the southwest Pacific Ocean, beginning with the first significant arrivals of Westerners in the 19th century. Similar behaviors have, however, also appeared elsewhere in the world.
Cargo cult activity in the Pacific region increased significantly during and immediately after World War II, when the residents of these regions observed the Japanese and American combatants bringing in large amounts of material. When the war ended, the military bases closed and the flow of goods and materials ceased. In an attempt to attract further deliveries of goods, followers of the cults engaged in ritualistic practices such as building crude imitation landing strips, aircraft and radio equipment, and mimicking the behavior that they had observed of the military personnel operating them.
…
How can they do a cash-out refi if the house is at break-even price? There’s no equity to cash out. At best they will no longer be underwater.
The issue is will they instantly sell once they hit break even or decide that they should hold on even longer to try a cash out refi as soon as it is possible.
I just don’t think that anyone is thinking at all when they say they are going to wait until “the market turns around” to sell. They aren’t thinking about what their real definition of a market turn around is. They aren’t thinking about what would have to be going on in the economy for that to happen. They aren’t thinking about the real market incentives once it happens if it even could. They are just thinking that they want to sell when people will be clamoring for their place that was such a good idea to buy. They don’t realize that in order for people to clamor for their place, it will have to be much cheaper.
We haven’t really been in a similar situation before with mass defaults and mass lien-holder inaction, other than perhaps locally for short periods. There are many things that could be done to avert some of the consequences of the current situation. One comment advocated revision of adverse possession laws and that could be done just on a local basis, at least on a state basis. Nobody really “owns” real estate except government which confers “bundles of legal rights” as what we can actually own, and that “bundle of legal rights” can be and has been changed over time. The restrictions imposed by zoning are an example and forfeiture laws are another. So it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine changes along the lines of the following: The lien holder (or in some places the trustee) has a statutory limit placed on it, requiring action within a specified time interval after default to “perfect” its interest in the property subject to the lien or deed of trust. Failure to do so would result in the property escheating to the owner of record, or if you like it could escheat otherwise to local surplus property custodians who could dispose of it as they see fit (probably to their friends and families..haha!). After all, we already have time limits for aggrieved parties to file suit for damages. Here in Virginia it’s 2 years.
We could also develop laws requiring banks to maintain abandoned properties physically and legally (pay taxes HOA dues, etc.) or face forfeiture to localities after specified time from when constructive notice of violation has been filed. It is assumed here that those who have walked away have no skin in the game, but provision could be made for cases where they do.
There are places in the world where owners of farm land must use it or lose it, the purpose being to ensure constructive use is made of the land.
Some may say this is “socialist” or something like that, but what’s so bad about insisting that people or banks be required to behave like owners. After all, you can take the plates off a car and park it on a public street, but don’t expect to come back a year later and find it still there!!
“There are places in the world where owners of farm land must use it or lose it, the purpose being to ensure constructive use is made of the land.”
That was the original idea behind adverse possession laws in Florida.
Patience, grasshoppers. Charles Hugh Smith’s awesome graph on post-bubble declines indicates that we should not expect bottom until 2014. Couple more years and a bit to go. I was bummed when I first saw this graph (sheesh, you mean I have to wait that long?) but no more. The very instability of society at this time is enough to keep me from pulling the trigger. My dream of a concrete block shack in FLA is self-postponed, and am monitoring prices in Western North Carolina. Now THAT is a rather slow decline, compared to here. I guess it’s one of those areas that is more desirable for various reasons, although jobs isn’t one of them.
That’s right…. time is on our side.
On a related note, how much inventory is obsolete?
Consider the housing units depicted in these photos.
http://artblart.wordpress.com/tag/south-bronx/
Originally a step up from the tenements of Manhattan for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, they were later a step up for in-migrants from Puerto Rico and the southern U.S. who had been living in shacks.
Hot water and heat. But later peeling lead paint, rats and roaches.
New York City later gutted and rebuilt hundreds of buildings like these that had gone “in-rem” — the landlords had stopped paying property taxes, doing maintenance, etc. Others were torn down.
Tomorrow I am going to my local town hall to issue a formal complaint against the house next to me. The town website is very clear about giving the owner due process. Fine. They can have it, but I have decided I am going to swarm this property until they clean it up.
Basically they simply pile all of the debris in the backyard. The owner is never here, but about once a month two dudes in an unmarked van swing by, mow the lawn, and pile all the chit in the back. My wife, who is not able to identify snakes, is freaking out because I think she saw a coral snake on our porch about a month ago (she said it was red and striped, so I asked her if the body was more red or more black, and she said black). Not good. It also has a utility lien against it (over a year now). Is it o.k. to let that go indefinitely?
Anyway, I will battle the shadow inventory in my ‘hood, one house at a time.
BTW, the house is ‘owned’ by a Realtor.
“BTW, the house is ‘owned’ by a Realtor.”
Nail’em Mugz. And don’t stop until the dump meets local ordinance. Make’em spend the money.
I’m hoping to get to the $250 fine/day level.