Neighborhoods riddled with foreclosures quickly develop other kinds of problems.In fact, one foreclosure will shave up to 1.5 percent off the value of the other homes on the same block, according to research by Dan Immergluck, associate professor of city and regional planning at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Other costs are harder to measure, but municipal governments, police departments, and neighbors observe that empty homes give rise to an increase in thefts and may encourage drug dealers and even violent criminals to take advantage of the situation.
As homes fall into foreclosure, a neighborhood frequently turns more transient, analysts say. Investors often buy homes in foreclosure and rent them out if they can't sell them."You end up with a very fragmented community," says home owner Ann Fulman of Atlanta. "When investors buy them and turn them into rental property … folks come in [who] don't have the means to keep up the place."
In the Atlanta suburbs of Gwinnett County, the police department recently created a Quality of Life unit to address problems often associated with foreclosures. Working with other government agencies, the unit targets such issues as building-code enforcement, vagrancy, and graffiti.
Source: USA Today, Noelle Knox (04/13/07)
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