The Housing Crisis: Mark Guerette and the Realities of Home Ownership

The New York Times continues to examine the nuances of the housing meltdown with a story on Mark Guerette, a Floridian who is claiming blighted, abandoned homes, fixing them up, and renting them to needy families at low rates.

Catharine Skipp and Damien Cave report:

In a sign of the odd ingenuity that has grown from the real estate collapse, he is banking on an 1869 Florida statute that says the bundle of properties he has seized will be his if the owners do not claim them within seven years.

A version of the same law was used in the 1850s to claim possession of runaway slaves, though Mr. Guerette, 47, a clean-cut mortgage broker, sees his efforts as heroic. “There are all these properties out there that could be used for good,” he said.

Given Flint's abandoned housing problem, the story certainly resonated with me. The only problem? Guerette could end up in jail, and his tenants could end up on the street.

Read the full article here.

Humane Evictions

The Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell announced a two-week ban on evictions involving foreclosed rental properties. It seems renters might be getting evicted when their landlord's property gets foreclosed, even though they've paid rent. Pickell said the two week moratorium would provide an opportunity to come up with a "more humane" way to deal with tenants.

The Genesee Landlords Association responded by threatening to sue the sheriff's office if he didn't enforce the eviction notices.

After all, Flint's got such a hot real estate market that banks and mortgage companies want to get these desirable foreclosure properties on the market as soon as possible. Who cares if some renters get put out on the street?

House poor

It's not easy for Michigan homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage to find relief these days, but The Columbus Dispatch reports on some small changes that might help. Of course, compared to the proposed Wall Street bailout, it ain't much:

"If the $700 billion mortgage-lender bailout leaves you shaking your head, wondering when struggling homeowners will get theirs, consider this:

"Homeowners got some help more than a year ago.

"It was far less dramatic than today's proposal, and a Dispatch analysis of the latest data shows that Ohioans' share is shrinking.

"The help arrived in 2007, when the federal government pushed lenders to rewrite mortgages for people in danger of losing their homes. But those efforts have shifted from long-suffering states such as Ohio to hot properties in California, Arizona and Florida.

"The good news: more help could be on the way.

"The 451-page bailout approved by the Senate on Wednesday includes new lifelines for homeowners. One would require lenders and mortgage servicers to offer reasonable modifications for any loan that ends up in government hands.

"Moreover, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced new incentives Wednesday for lenders to rewrite troubled loans -- although the 'Hope for Homeowners' program, like most others, is voluntary.

"More than 4 million American homeowners with a mortgage -- a record 9 percent -- were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June as damage from the housing crisis worsened, the Mortgage Bankers Association said last month."