Foreclosures Turned Into Good Use By Habitat For Humanity

Posted on May 30th, 2008 by hinson

It is the wise that see the silver lining in the clouds. It is the wise that turn the rotting leaves into life sustaining fertilizers for a new tomorrow. So too harmful foreclosures has been turned into good use by Habitat for Humanity. The latter is USA’s best-loved and known organization involved in housing charity. It sees to the availability of cheap properties for communities around the country and has even reached out to different corners of the globe.

Habitat for Humanity has turned this foreclosure debacle into an opportunity to buy units at affordable rates. Scores of empty plots and vacant houses are being snapped at half price. The down turn in the real estate has been turned into good use by Habitat for Humanity. Executive director, Gage Yager says, “We have the opportunity to acquire at prices that just weren’t available few years ago.”

In Minneapolis the housing body is offering houses to low-income groups and arranging for volunteers to renovate the foreclosed units to make these habitable. If that is not feasible then the houses are pulled down to pave the way for construction of new units. In some places Habitat is buying up unfinished constructions from developers now unable to proceed with their plans, thanks to the foreclosure crisis.

Habitat is making it quite clear they are not fattening themselves on the misfortune of others. They argue that instead of allowing houses to lie vacant they are putting worthy families into these and thus preventing criminals and slumlords from grabbing the units. Thus they are actually on with a viable solution to the rolling foreclosure melt down. It is not unknown to anybody today the threats posed by innumerable vacant houses to the locality.

The president and CEO of Habitat in Phoenix comments that, the local property market has always attracted investors from outside. This has caused the prices to reach dizzy heights. Today the tables have turned and the outsiders have exited leaving behind a problem of vacant estates. “So be it”, he added. What they are now doing is giving finishing touches to these houses so that needy but worthy families can buy these at affordable rates and add grace and security to the locality. If this situation had not emerged these low-income group could never have been able to afford houses of their own. Undoubtedly owning houses is the great American dream.