Oregonian: City officials in booming Portland have developed a plan to foreclose on so-called “zombie homes” for the first time in 50 years as the city grapples with a swelling population and skyrocketing home costs that threaten to lock new homeowners out of the market.
The City Council voted Wednesday to foreclose on five of the city’s worst abandoned properties, the first part of a long-term plan to free up housing in an overheated market while clearing out squatters who have plagued developing neighborhoods outside the city’s hip core for years.
Council members also approved alterations to city code so Portland can sell a foreclosed property for its market value and not just for what’s owed in liens.
The idea of cities buying up blighted properties isn’t new, and Portland looked to metropolises like Baltimore or Detroit while devising its plan. But unlike those cities, which were hit hard by the recession, Portland is bursting with newcomers and housing demand has far outstripped supply. Portland home prices are going up 11 percent year over year and 1,000 new people move to the city every month, Mayor Charlie Hales said.
“It’s fundamentally crazy that we have houses sitting empty in a market where a ‘For Sale’ or a ‘For Rent’ sign would cure that by tomorrow morning,” Hales said. “We’ve got to light up every single one of these homes with people living in them.”
Portland hasn’t foreclosed on anyone since 1965, when a single mother sued after officials took her home over a $28 sidewalk nuisance fee.
a nothing burger story about a clueless reporter who knows nothing about private property rights interviewing a leftist politician equally so. Abandoned properties in almost all counties are seized and sold for nonpayment of property taxes and nonpayment of demolition assessments when they are demolished because they are a hazard.
But unlike those cities, which were hit hard by the recession, FA QU Oregonian, they were hit a lot harder by demoncrunt overspending
Besides, those arent zombie housing, they’re shooting galleries for all your dumbass druggie friends and family.