Among the most insidious impacts of the recession is “foreclosure stripping.”
When homes sit empty, vandals frequently invade. The damage they do runs an ugly gamut, from spray painting cabinets to removing everything but the studs.
To combat the problem, Homes in Transition was created in February 2009. Its caretakers house-sit about 10 percent of the more than 2,000 empty homes in the Duke City. The concept has been so successful that the company will open a second office in Phoenix in May, where there is a much larger vacant home inventory. Phoenix has 140,000 empty homes, said Tom Schmidt, the company’s founder, a veteran builder who ran Teko Custom Home Builders LLC for a decade.
“I saw the economy heading south and realized it was going to crush all of us. We all love this business we created, but know it’s built on the back of hard economic times and people’s troubles, and that’s the catch-22 of it,” said Schmidt, who describes himself as a religious man who has a sense of guilt as the business has grown.
Homes in Transition isn’t a private security service. It’s more of a staging company that keeps homes occupied until they are sold. The key to the business is recruiting “caretakers” to live in the homes until a sale. These caretakers are in transition themselves, as some have lost their homes to foreclosure.
This is a great article about a great Albuquerque Real Estate related company. I have shown many of the homes Homes in Transition caretakers occupy. Often these homes show better than vacant homes or homes where the owner still lives. Homes in Transition is a great asset especially to sellers who can no longer live in their Albuquerque home, perhaps because they've purchased another home or have been relocated out of the area. The side benefit to having a caretaker in the home besides it showing nicely, is that it shows the home as being occupied which will help prevent the buyer from getting the impression that the seller is overly motivated, which then leads to a very low offer that doesn't have a chance of reaching a contract. If you have an Albuquerque home for sale, and you're no longer able to occupy it, I would strongly consider calling Homes in Transition
Posted on Albuquerque Real Estate-Albuquerque Homes For Sale
No comments:
Post a Comment