Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Squatters who illegally occupy vacant homes or buildings are not always contributing to apathy or social disorder, says a new University of Michigan study that will be presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
It can actually be a good situation for a neighborhood to have these individuals move into abandoned homes, lessening the chance of them becoming sites for drug users or burned by arsonists, the study indicates.
In urban communities nationwide, such as Detroit, which are experiencing population decline, homes have been abandoned by owners or left unattended by private investors who often purchase them in bundles of tens, hundreds, or even thousands.
"While attempts to revitalize a city rely on private ownership to induce responsible care for property, that isn't always an option," said study author Claire Herbert, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where she earned a PhD in sociology.
That's where squatters come in.
Herbert, who will be an assistant professor at Drexel University in the fall, interviewed more than 60 people, including squatters, city authorities, and residents between 2013-2015, while also gathering ethnographic data on illegal property use from various sources, such as community meetings and squatted areas across Detroit.
Surprisingly, many of the residents in the study welcome squatters to keep abandoned homes occupied. Squatting, however, was not considered acceptable to residents if the home was still occupied or if the legal owner was maintaining and overseeing the property.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2016, @02:27PM
The spite part is that they don't even attempt to actually maintain the value. If they just want to play pretend, why not let the former owners stay there in exchange for mowing the lawn, or just pretend the mortgage is still viable, at least until market conditions might allow them to actually sell the house (or the borrower becomes able to pay again)?
That is a good point. I think there's three effects here. First, we've already spoken of the squatter laws. There might be a risk of losing the property. Second, having someone live in the property may move it to a different category that can't be used as I suggest - maybe rental property is treated differently. I certainly don't know. There's also the cynical possibility that they're doing that to restrict supply even further.
Third, this behavior seems to indicate that the banks never actually expect the property to become viable at some point in the future. Thus, any maintenance becomes a pure cost. That's what really bugs me about this situation. Good property is getting destroyed by complete neglect. Banks aren't in the habit of throwing money away. There has to be a way this leads, if not to profit, then to lower losses than if they did something with the property.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 24 2016, @07:01PM
The thing is, emptying the house is what opens them up to squatters, especially when they neglect to care for it themselves.Renters cannot gain possession through squatter laws. Generally, active rental properties are valued greater than empty and decaying ones. No matter how badly the real estate market crumbles, a livable home on a maintained lot will be worth more than a pile of rubble.
There may be some obscure business angle there, but since they're already committing fraud by keeping the property on the books at pre-crash values, it's indistinguishable from spite from the outside.