What a Waste: New Homes Demolished By Bank

Home demolitions

The destruction of wealth due to the recession gathers pace.

US banks given trillion of dollars in tax payers money to let them off their own bad debts, are showing no such mercy to unemployed, or otherwise impoverished home owners who fall behind in their mortgages.

In the latest trend from America, banks, after throwing the former inhabitants on the street, are instead of letting these houses stand empty - Are rather demolishing perfectly good, and often brand new homes.

This in a country where tens of thousands of Americans and homeless, and many, many, more are forced to live in sub-standard, overcrowded and unhealthy housing.

This modern tactic, is the 21st century version of the burning of wheat and the driving of cattle off cliffs that was used to keep profits up, and bolster unafordable prices in the 1930s.

-While the poor starved.-

The only result of these brutal and wasteful tactics will be to make the recession worse.

Americans should be demanding that the taxpayer money gifted to the banks, instead of being used to bolster their profits, is used to lower mortgages to affordable levels. And/or, in case of default, due to no fault of the home owner, a moratorium on mortgage payments until the homeowner is back on their feet.

Here in New Zealand this was done in the 1930s when the government mandated a universal moratorium on mortgages.

Jenny @ May 30, 2009 21:23:20 PM

liability and not typical

This is not a typical situation. For a bank to demolish homes at a cost to them of 100,000 is the last thing that they rather do.

These houses were not finished and in the middle of the desert. It is a liability for these companies to give away these homes to anyone. If these houses were not built to meet the building codes it is very possible that it will take more money to fix them than it would to build new. Habitat for Humanity spends an average of 85,000 per house. If these houses were not properly finished, this probably would have cost more per house.

ryan of NJ @ May 12, 2009 16:31:43 PM

Sounds Typical

is it because they are lazy, or would rather tear it down then have someone living in it for free on their dime? Oops, I take that back...

is it because they are lazy, or would rather tear it down then having someone living in it for free on the taxpayers dime...

there we go! Edited for accuracy!

It's either chinese drywall possibly or they are just happier to rip it down and move on. Jokes on them, they still have a lot underneath it to contend with...

Joe Donner of NV @ May 06, 2009 23:11:51 PM

No folks It realy is that Bad

Right now myself and the man I work for are putting offers on fully developed lots at about twenty cents on a dollar.

This is not going to go away, the american public has tried to sweep the mess under the carpet for the last three years. Wake up, get off your self serving behind and do something. Kick the boys that created this mess into the hole they have dug for the rest of you while filling their pockets.

You the public are going to be the ones paying for the lost retierment school fund money, unless the government is going to give the shaft to your teachers who put THIER money and trust in the bankers, trust fund advisors, hedge fund directors and government officials who job WITCH THEY ARE PAID FOR BY YOU to watch out for.

I am a land acqusitions person and know who is getting the shaft.

JohnVictor of VA @ May 06, 2009 17:48:08 PM

habitat for humanity

anyone ever hear about Habitat for Humanity??? They are looking for donated lots, and here we have lots with half constructed homes.... Come on people, what are we thinking... Obviously, we are not thinking at all...Once again our government, which has an IQ of ? has their head up their .......

Connie of WI @ May 06, 2009 17:12:59 PM

Wrong way to do things.

It would have taken one phone call to extreme home makeover or some show like that to get these houses sold. Destroying new houses is bad karma. So many families need a home.

Flabbergasted of AL @ May 06, 2009 13:00:07 PM

The real story

None of the national media is reporting this story right. The builder threw up the homes without infrastructure. The homes never passed final inspection and even the 4 models that were done were not hooked to sewers and were not hooked to any utilities. The builder was hoping so pre-sell to get money to finish. The builder went belly up before the homes were made livable. They could not be sold for cheap to hardworking families because they did not meet building codes and it would have cost much more to bring them up to code than to demolish and re-cycle them. There are plenty of real cheap homes up here to buy without selling people junk, which these were.

Come on, media. Get it right

Glenn, Victorville, Ca of CA @ May 06, 2009 03:13:04 AM

We have Mr. Obama.

We don't care.

Mr. Obama will give us as much money as we want.

david hoffman of NJ @ May 05, 2009 22:25:43 PM