‘Zombie’ Houses in Foreclosure Can Sit Vacant, Haunt Neighbors for Years
On Berdan Avenue in Fair Lawn, a piece of black tarp hangs off the roof of a brick Cape Cod, and two dead evergreens stand sentinel at the front steps. Get close to the house and you’ll catch a whiff of mold.
On Cumberland Avenue in Teaneck, weeds grow through the patio behind a vacant brick ranch; inside, paint is peeling off the walls in sheets.
Neighbors call these homes eyesores. Real estate experts have another name: “Zombie” houses — homes in foreclosure that stay empty and neglected for years.
A decade after the housing market began its slide into the worst downturn in generations, New Jersey still has about 4,000 homes left empty because of foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac, which follows the foreclosure market nationwide. That’s about 6.2 percent of the total number in foreclosure in the state, higher than the national rate of 4.7 percent.
These abandoned homes are a headache for towns and neighbors. Under New Jersey law, the properties have to be maintained by the mortgage lender while they’re in the foreclosure process, but neighbors say the maintenance usually doesn’t go beyond mowing the lawn and making sure the doors are locked.
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The people who commented under “more here”(NJ.com) don’t have a grip on the fact that the banks are interested ONLY in foreclosing so they can collect the insurance money. Banks don’t care about the homes, or the families that once lived there, or the neighbor(s)(hood). They can walk away once they get the necessary papers/court validations for their payday. Theirs is merely a paperchase for $$$. They absolutely don’t care about the backdoor costs to communities loss of pensions, higher cost of living…. Little and middle American wind up paying for the bankers’ profiteering.
Those ramshackled abandoned homes are monuments to the corrupt entrepreneurs who created $ out of thin air and the politicians and judges who are in bed with it all.