Why is the government in the job of fixing foreclosed homes up to sell. There are 1000's of real estate people that do that for a living. WHile 90% of CMHA buildings don't meet inspection criteria we are dumping more tax dollars into yet another rat hole. I wonder who gets the work fixing or tearing this stuff down.
Here is an idea. Make the MLS system that real estate people use public to foreclosures. Create a county wide data bank of every foreclosed home and allow PEOPLE (not the government) to easily purchase the homes with a set of certain goals for the fix up as terms of the purchase. The money would be put in escrow and when the repairs are complete then a family could have a nice starter home for a 20,000 dollar investment.
That is true first time buyer program not providing 400K to people with a 350 credit rating without proof of citizenship. My Parents first started in a neighborhood here I would enter now without a 50 caliber but it was their home and they then sold it to move and upgrade when they could afford it.

Government got involved when those 1000s of companies that you mentioned did nothing to maintain foreclosures and allowed them to be stripped and become a drag on home prices in the neighborhoods that surrounded them. Why in heaven's name would we allow them to once again trash our neighborhoods by neglecting the properties?

Same thing holds for tranche's comments. Both of you obviously have not had to deal with the actual results of these foreclosures. If you did you would be shocked at how the banks and their management companies refuse to maintain or secure the properties.

And yes, it sounds great about people buying the houses, fixing them up and living in them. However, a large number end up as rentals with landlords that are just as bad as the bank management companies. And that also contributes to neighborhood decline.

If the dang private sector was so blessedly efficient as you maintain, then the banks would not be refusing legitimate offers on these properties before they become stripped and wrecks. I know one rehabber who tried to buy the foreclosure on his streert at a decent price and was turned down. He bid again after someone stripped the house of copper etc. and was turned down. The house finally sold for 8K less than he bid about a year later. The whole process took 2 and half years. '

At least the landbank keeps the properties up or tears them down helping to stabilize the values in the neighborhood. They also respond to cities about their properties and do the necessary maintenance.

Blah- blah-blah-blah-blah.

Another Detroit.

Amazing, the Rokakis never noticed the corruption, the crumbling of the political infrastructure and the wasting of money, the jobs given to cronies. Now he is secure with pension and a nonprofit job.

Why did people leave the city and the first ring suburbs? Why did politicians help and encourage people who were clearly without the means--financial and social--to own a home to take on the the challenging task of home owning?

Government cannot take over and relieve the citizens of personal responsibility. Welfare doesn't solve problems. Public housing has failed. Nothing is more destructive to a neighborhood that section 8 housing.

Yes, the lending institutions are guilty. Yes, our financial institutions have been less than ethical at times. Nevertheless, it is government, a kind of government that says "we will take care of you" that has created our problems. Our cities were destroyed by the liberals' agenda. Our public schools were manipulated by social scientists.

Supposedly one of the problems in removing these abandoned homes is the cost of demolition. Naturally the work would have to be done--if the government is involved--by union contractors. This would mean unreasonable costs. Although many of these homes are of little value and need to be bull-dozed into a land fill, many could be restored; parts could be reused.

Offer the homes to individuals or groups of individuals willing to "disassemble" the homes and then rebuild them in other locations. I'd start by offering the homes to the Amish community. They would take all of the usable and reusable parts of the structure.

Actually, businesses could be created by groups of people. They get the house for free. They come into the city disassemble the house and take all usable parts to a warehouse. Someone could then come to the warehouse and purchase all or parts of a home and create a new house.

Difficult and challenging yes. Impossible, no. The more we can involved individuals in a free market, entrepreneurial approach the greater the chance of success. The less government involvement the better.

As for the neighborhoods that suffer from the physical and economic deterioration let us not forget that it is the human infrastructure that was first to be destroyed by the welfare state. The physical deterioration followed.

God you people are embarassing. Schochet won't make decisions based on what the Plain Dealer writes-- much less what some yo-yos in the comments are saying. He isn't here because he cares a whit about the city. He's here for there reasons.

One. land here is dirt-cheap, compared to other cities. You look at what it costs compared to any comparable city and it's ridiculously low.

Two, after the death of Dick Jacobs and the decrepitude (brought on by age) in the Ranter/Miller family, there is no one in town who's really smart when it comes to real estate. Thie smartest guy in town is Dan Gilbert and he couldn't care less about the 99,9% of the city not directly connected to his basketball team. (The Cleveland Clinic doesn't care what happens either, as long as the area around their fiefdom stays cheap.)

Three, the region is ripe for the taking. The city is run by morons. The county has only one functioning intellect... and Ed Fitzgerald is just a highly ambitious guys who is bright enough to know he has to have lots of shiny buildings (just like Voin-O) if he wants to be governor. The entities that are supposed to be looking out of the residents' best interest (the political parties, the newspaper, chamber of commerce, local philanthrpists) are all mindless lapdogs who don't know anything about development.

He says, in the article, what he intends to do: First, snap up as much cheap property as he can, now, when it's cheap. Second, roll the city and the county for billions in block grants, low-interest loans and tax abatements by blackmailing them. Three, do a concerted push to drive up property values, by building, poaching (from other cities) or growing companies.

Unless a business manufactures things, it can be located anywhere. There's no reason that a company needs to pay $$$$ per square foot in Chicago, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis or Columbus when it can pay pennies here. Key figured that out, which is why they did not move office here, like they originally intended. So have the corporate raiders who stole National City Bank.

The region will see some benefit-- to get rich, Schochet will need to have his building occupied. But there will be much less benefit for the region than people think, because he'll make Dick Jacobs, Gordon Gund and Randy Lerner look like Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers and Captain Penny when it comes to cutting him deals. To get some company comparable to Sears here, he'll make sure that the city, county and state aren't collecting all or most of the payroll or income taxes they would normally be entitled to, so he has a deal that no other city can beat.

The buldings will be full... but not by people who generate revenue. Quite likely it'll be a situation like Gateway, where the region makes less money from the shiny buildings than they did with the old Central Market and its adjoining slums.

Tarax, you should examine the ignorance of your own statement. You said that getting properties back onto the tax rolls creates a win-win situation while the article above says Rokakis "wiped out the taxes" for several large investors. Which one is it? Are we getting the taxes or are they being wiped out for select, out-of-state investors?

If Rokakis can easily "wipe out the taxes" for out-of-state real estate investors like Thor, who live in California, and who own 24 tax delinquent and blighted properties in Cuyahoga County as the article stated, then why didn't he just "wipe out the taxes" for tax delinquent residents and homeowners of Cuyahoga County who got behind because they lost their jobs or faced other financial hardships that created the delinquency in the first place? Better yet, why didn't he offer delinquent "resident" property owners the same discount on their own tax bill that he sold to the investors? Tarax you are so grossly misinformed it's scarey.

More importantly, why is Rokakis "wiping out taxes" for out-of-state investors instead of investing land bank money to help mayors and councils make them pay-up and fix up or demolish their own properties? About 65 percent of the money Rokakis wiped out goes to the school district, while about 15 percent goes to the city while the rest goes to the county. "Wiping out the taxes" AND using county money to demolish an out-of-state investor's vacant properties lets the big guy completely off-the-hook while the little guy is forced to pay-up. This is absolutely nuts and terrible public policy.

Five years ago Cleveland had over 17,000 vacant properties. That number has exceeded 25,000 today. There ain't enough money in the land bank to knock them all down and I guarantee that this money won't go to the neighborhoods hardest hit by foreclosure on Cleveland's east side, in East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights. And I will not back down from my statement that Rokakis' policies began to create vacant housing on hundreds of streets long before the foreclosure crisis hit Cuyahoga County. His policies exacerbated the crisis and anyone who's been paying attention to this issue knows this area was "hardest hit" because of the double-whammy effect of sub-prime lending AND Rokakis' third party tax lien sales. Mayor Frank Jackson asked him to stop selling third party liens in his city three years ago. Rokakis, arrogantly, ignored him.

Most cities have "blight" ordinances on the books that they can't afford to enforce. Those ordinances allow local mayors and councils to declare a property to be a nuisance and to pursue the owner for remedies, up to and including prosecution. Instead of investing anywhere from $7500 to $50,000 and more to demolish vacant structures, Rokakis could help cities by allocating a portion of the money to enforcement actions.

And Rokakis' campaign finance report is most definintely full of contributions from the individuals who represent the third party investment firms buying delinquent tax liens, and with investors who own large holdings of properties. Go get it from the Board of Elections and then get a list of the employees who represent the investment firms and compare the two. That's an easy enough assignment.

There's nothing vitriolic about facts, and I bear no ill will towards Rokakis, only his policies. He's been getting away with this charade for the last decade and, unfortunately, the only chance for it to end is under the new form of government. To all the county CEO candidates, hone in on this issue. You're going to inherit one big mess with this one.

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Plain Dealer has deleted many posted comments to their site--Jar65 was finally shut down--I was CitizenX ...and so it goes: