Extreme Home Makeover Depression Edition II

This post is an update of Extreme Home Makeover Depression Edition where banks acquired brand new homes in foreclosure processes, the homes were not quite finished and the banks razed these homes rather than fix code violations.

Extreme Home Makeover Depression Edition Part 3
A peek inside the homes before they were demolished



Extreme Home Makeover Depression Edition Part 5
Part 4 is not yet available
Home Demolition




There you have it. Brand new nearly completed homes have a negative value because of regulations and are therefore destroyed.

From "Vision Victory" ...

The homes were once owned by developer Mathews Homes and picked up by Guaranty Bank in Irvine via foreclosure. Guaranty Bank in Irvine is paying for the destruction of them. 4 model homes and 12 almost finished homes are being demolished. The person running the machine in the video says there are another 20 homes in Temecula California to demolish, about an hour away.

NEW HOMES DEMOLISHED
By Patrick Thatcher, staff writer for, Daily Press

Victorville- The housing collapse is taking a literal form for one bankrupt housing development. Four model homes and 12 nearly finished spec homes at Bear Valley Road and Highway 395 are being demolished.

The developer filed bankruptcy about 18 months ago and the foreclosed property went to Guaranty Bank in Irvine.

A Guaranty Bank official, Real Estate Officer Dean Smith, said they were facing daily fines from the city of Victorville if they didnt do something with the homes and property that not up to code. He said it was a choice of pumping their own money into property site improvements and additional money to bring the home up to code or tear down the 16 homes.

Smith said the bank is not in the building or land development business and because of the current housing market does not see anything happening with the property for at least five years.

Our only option is to either proceed with putting more than a million bucks into the land, which we've already taken a huge hit on and lost a lot of money, or, we tear down the houses, Smith said.

He said the builder put up the homes before completing the site improvements and failed to have enough money to finish roads, walls, and other improvements that bring the community into code. Everything just fell apart at that point and we cant sell homes that are not up to code, Smith said.

He said the city of Victorville fined the bank once because the home are out of code and would have faced daily fines if Guaranty didn't do something with the vacant houses.

There are still substantial dollars that need to be put into the land before the city of Victorville will give certificates of occupancy on the houses and the bank isn't willing to put forward that amount of money, Smith said.

He said the homes are a liability to Guaranty and that all of them are heavily vandalized inside and out with broken glass everywhere. Our projections are that those houses would sit the way they are for at least five years, what would they be worth then? Smith said. He said once the homes are demolished the property will be put on the market again. Calls to the developer were not returned.

Patrick Thatcher may be reached at 760-951-6227 or at pthatcher@VVDailyPress.com

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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