WEBVTT - Who owns an abandoned house? 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:04.400 Welcome to you stuff you should know from House Stuff 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:12.600 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. My 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:15.640 name is Josh Clark and across from me is Charles 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.720 Chuck Bryant. And because of that, because it's the two 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.319 of us, uh and Jerry, of course, um, you have 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.480 stuff you should know? Okay, yeah, stop protesting us. It's 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:32.159 a sweet little drifecta of people in here. Do my 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.960 favorite people in this office? Two of my two favorite 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:44.400 people are in this office, me and Jerry. You're doing 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.760 all right? Yeah? Man, I know for a fact that 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.560 you're not, Uh, because I have an abandoned house across 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:52.760 from me. Do you really? Yeah, We're gonna work in 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.520 some personal details here. Well that's good man, because um, 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.800 I feel like if there's anything personal in this world, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:04.840 it's an empty, unused house. Okay, you know, especially one 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.320 that's left in your neighborhood. Isn't that a big like 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.520 f you to the rest of the people who live there? Yeah? 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:15.080 I've actually got two side by side. Now. Oh that's delightful. Yeah, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.560 that's great man, because as you already understand, and now 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.360 I understand from researching this, and our listeners will soon understand, 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.160 that's a real problem. Yeah, just one is a real problem. 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.839 Two side by side. You may want to run a bulldozer. Well, 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:33.800 there may be a happy ending. Okay, we'll play it 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.640 out dramatically over the course of the show. That's good man. Um, 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:42.319 so we should probably set the set the stage for everybody. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:47.640 It's the early to mid two thousand's sweet. Yeah, the 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.040 first decade, early to mid part of the first decade. 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:54.480 I'm in Los Angeles. Yeah, okay, um, and the real 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.640 estate boom is in full swing. Everybody's forgotten about the 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.920 dot com bubble? What was that? That was a fluke? 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.160 You know, Let's start investing in real estate. Will make 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.639 it like nineteen twenties Florida. And these prices, sure do 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.240 you seem exorbitant, but hey, I'm sure we'll make our 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.960 money back. And this bubble just keeps growing and growing 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.919 and growing, and people are buying like four or five 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.960 six houses, and I mean like people, not not companies, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.600 like people who are just flipping it. Then all Ice 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.240 gets a show about flipping um real estate, like, there's 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.639 flipped this actually, well yeah, okay, it's still it came 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.400 out of this and this bubble is just growing and 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.639 growing and growing. Then all of a sudden, it just pops, 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:41.240 and it popped because everybody figured out that the prices 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.160 for the houses were more than they were worth. Bubble 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.400 head grown. It was artificial, there was an artificial market, 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.760 and everybody just kind of walked away. It was a 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:56.440 truly fascinating it was. It was fascinating and scary, but 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.320 also it was like just to watch it. I mean, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:03.360 we watched it, we chronicled, but argually so the bubble bursts. 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.040 And there's a lot of people, those speculators, investors and 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.440 ordinary people who took out terrible, terrible loans and over 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.160 extending themselves, um oftentimes with the hands of predators. There's 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.400 a lot of people to blame. But there were a 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.240 lot of houses that suddenly we're not worth what they 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:27.240 had been paid for ye or house flippers that you know, 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.919 maybe said my job, I kind of hate. I can 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.280 flip a house. People are getting rich doing this, right 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:36.720 And not only that, I can, actually the access to 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.920 credit is so easy right now, I can afford six 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.080 of them and take this kind of blighted area and 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.240 fix these six houses up and just create a whole 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.520 new neighborhood out of it, and some of those people 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.680 were left not with a single family that just got 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.480 burned or burn themselves on one house, but like, I've 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.400 got six or seven houses now that I'm underwater on 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:00.440 and I'm going to foreclose on all of them or 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.040 maybe just leave. And that was enoughtion that a lot 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.640 of people took. Here's the thing, a lot of those 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:11.200 people did this under the guise of LLC's and so 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.760 they didn't have to file for bankruptcy there. Their LLC 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.359 just had to go away. Their liability was limited, exactly, 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.760 it was very limited. Um. So there's a lot of 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:22.960 people out there who just walked away from their houses. 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:27.760 And those houses now this is two two nine, um. 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.200 Those houses now are just sitting there abandoned in cities 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.760 all over the country. Of course, Detroit has it worse, 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.200 but there's a lot of other cities that have it 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.800 pretty bad too. Um. And actually Detroit is kind of 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.599 leading the way and figuring out what to do with 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.960 these houses because right now they're sitting there. Even as 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:48.440 the market recovers. The houses that are left over, that 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.320 are abandoned are in really bad shape. So they're the 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.840 ones that aren't going anywhere ever. And now we all 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:57.760 have to figure out as a society what to do 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.279 with these things. So who longs an abandoned house? Well, 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.880 we'll get to that, Okay, I want some stats, all right, 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.960 two thousand twelve, that's last year, two point three million 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.880 homes were foreclosed on nationwide. Compare that to two thousand, 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.120 four hundred and seventy thousand homes were foreclosed on. So 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.040 it's quite a jump. Um, it looks like things peaked 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:23.200 in two thousand eleven at about three point nine million 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.520 homes in that year. Uh. And now we're kind of 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.839 back down to like mid two thousand seven levels. Um. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.200 And then I just pulled this today Florida and they 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.960 do this like monthly quarterly. Florida is in pretty bad 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.640 shape right now. Like forget Detroit. Uh, they lead the 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.720 country with UM one out of every one hundred and 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:48.159 four housing units is in foreclosure in Florida. UM. Nevada 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.240 is next at one in every one, fifteen, Illinois one 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.320 and everyone seven, Ohio one and everyone eighty eight. And 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.760 then Georgia one in every two hundred housing units is 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:03.159 being foreclosed on. Yeah, and uh, Florida has I think 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.679 four of the top five metropolitan areas in the country 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:14.159 as well for just four closed homes. Yeah, Miami's number one, Orlando, Okalla, Jacksonville, 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.960 and then Las Vegas is number four. So what is 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:19.479 a bad shape? Although we are going to be talking 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.880 about Detroit because this article talked about Detroit. Well, there's 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.920 a big difference between and this is why Detroit comes up. 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:31.120 Detroit probably has more empty houses, especially per capita, than 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.599 any other city in in the country. And I think 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.320 eighty thousand businesses factories are homes right now. So what 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:43.760 I saw most recently was um, something liked and seventy 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.679 two abandoned homes. Well, it probably depends on where engaged 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.680 stats um. And that's out of something like three hundred 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:57.160 and seventy thousand in total. Yeah, so something about like 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:05.240 thirty six percent of Detroit's residential spaces are empty, abandoned, yeah, vacant. Yeah. 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.560 Like remember the Silver Dome deal, know, the where the 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.000 Detroit Lions played since nineteen seventy five. It cost fifty 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.960 five million bucks to build it in nineteen and it's 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.840 sold in two thousand nine for five hundred and eighty 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:23.040 three thousand. Yeah, what do they do with it? The 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.120 dude is fixing it? Up apparently, and they have had 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.960 like a friendly soccer match there and a monster truck 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:34.680 jam there. He's reinvesting in it. Um, that's good. Apparently 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:36.960 it's going to live. But the dude steel like feels 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.160 a twenty million dollar deal that fell apart and then 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.800 this guyot for half a million bucks. That's all. He's 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.600 just some dude. I'll bet he worth Hawaiian shirt. Uh. Yeah, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.640 I don't know what he wears. I would I don't know. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:49.200 For that much money, I would turn it into like 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.760 the biggest house, the studio apartment, and I'll bet you're 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.280 a heating built and kill you every winner. Yeah, I 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.640 just built small fires the silver domes where I saw 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.000 my first rodeo. Really Yeah, well you can probably see 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.400 a rodeo there again probably or just livestock kind of 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.000 grazing inside. Okay, so hold anament there. I think it's 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:17.000 time for a message break. Uh, and we're back. So 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.280 we're talking about the vacant homes. Like, there's a big 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:26.280 difference between foreclosed homes and even like when it's in foreclosures, 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.800 there's a lot of different aspects to it. Yeah, they 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.080 can stay a foreclosure for years essentially be a vacant home. 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.400 You can get your first letter um of an intent 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.199 to foreclose. That means your house is in foreclosure. You 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.600 can the the company who actually kicked you out could 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.880 be bidding on it on the courthouse steps. That's the 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.400 end of foreclosure. And there's a lot of stuff in between. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.679 And there's a lot of foreclosures that just don't go 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.400 all the way through. So the house is technically still 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.400 in foreclosure even though it hasn't been repossessed by the 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:02.079 bank um and the person may still be living in 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.320 there under those circumstances. So forth closed doesn't equal vacant. 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.800 Well yeah, and it's there's So it's such a mess 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.040 right now. Sometimes it's hard to even get anyone to 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.000 claim ownership of some of these houses, like they don't 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.720 know which because banks would sell the loans to other institutions, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.400 and sometimes it's already even tracked down, all right, who 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.920 actually owns this place? Right exactly? So let me give 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.719 you an instance. If you um own a home and 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.440 the bank says, hey, you're behind on payments, we're gonna 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:33.280 kick you out. Uh, you move out, they foreclosed, uh. 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.560 And it comes down to the time when the sheriff's 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.000 department holds an auction on the county steps. They steps 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.280 to the county courthouse, and the bank doesn't show up 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.319 to bid on it, and nobody does. That original owner 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.120 who is out of the house still owns that house 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.920 by right right, But that owner may have no idea 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.360 because I mean, you don't necessarily follow up on the 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.080 house that you were kicked out of five years ago. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.520 So they might not even know, and they've moved and 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.199 they might not know that they own the house. The bank, 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.560 even if they did foreclosed, may say that they don't 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:08.960 technically own it. And the well reason these houses are 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.480 hot potatoes is because all this time that property that's 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.800 sitting there is accruing taxes yea, and eventually it may 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.959 be worth less than the amount of taxes and leans 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.160 against it, so that the people who actually own it 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.360 don't want to claim possession of it because they're gonna 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.199 have to pay all those things. So these houses just 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:35.720 sit and eventually the concept of ownership over them fades. Yeah, 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:37.880 that's that's the case with the house across the street 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.000 from me. Um, here's the deal. We bought our house 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.199 in foreclosure and are now turning it around, or we 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:45.520 decided we're just gonna stay there forever because it's done 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.760 some very great things with that. I appreciate that, um. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.440 But across the street is a house has been vacant 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:54.719 since we moved in eight years ago or whatever, and 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.160 every couple of months, this lady would come by in 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.280 a truck with the dude with the lawmower to cut 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:01.920 the grass. She would sit in a truck and then 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:03.680 they would leave. And that's only action I've ever seen. 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.080 They quit doing that. So it's looks like you would 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.000 anticipate a house looking has been cared for for at 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.280 least a year. It's all overgrown, weeds, plants growing into 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.920 the house. The rear of the house is busted out 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.200 at the bottom so like people can get in and out, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.160 and supposedly there's been like vagrants sleeping in there. I 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.720 haven't verified this, but that's like you know, the neighborhood rumors. 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.320 So it's a derrelict house. And one of the neighbors 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.319 I think filed which we'll talk about with the county 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.439 to like get something done. And apparently there are some 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.679 back taxes OWD. So this lady may be washing her 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:39.439 hands of it. Just the very fact that there's a 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.319 house built on a piece of property that somebody owns 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.960 means that there's taxes accruing. And now that your neighbor 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.800 called the called code services and co code enforcement, that 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:51.720 means that they're going to come out and start writing 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.959 tickets assessments against the house, like for the law not 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.880 being cut, for being some sort of NUIs sense, like 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.840 maybe there's fired Codevilla la whatever, water problems, and there's 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.080 like rats and stuff. Now like you if your house floods, 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:06.880 you have to buy law clear it out, and if 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.199 you don't, they assess against you. And so all these 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.679 things just add up to the amount of money that 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.800 somebody would have to pay to gain full and free 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.520 possession of this house, which makes it even more unattractive. 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.520 So it's like this vicious cycle that's going on pretty much. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.199 And you you um kind of hit the nail on 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.920 the head with mentioning that vagrants are possibly living in there. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.640 Because the one of the biggest problems, rather than you know, 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:38.160 vermin or flooding or you know, the mosquitoes that develop 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.400 and in long tall, uncut grass, is the fact that 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:47.679 abandoned houses tend to attract crime. Yeah, uh in a 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.440 big way. UM. What do we have some stats here 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.240 from Queens, New York between two thousand and six and 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.760 two thousand eight. UM, In two thousand eight, neighborhoods and 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:59.959 Queens that had high foreclosure rates at an average of 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:04.360 four D twenty four more burglaries, robberies, and murders and 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.280 auto thefts than in areas with lower foreclosure rates. That's 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.440 up a hundred and fifty in two years. And that's 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.520 in Queens, which is transitional in parts but not a 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.839 bad neighborhood at all. Uh. And apparently in Detroit, in 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.959 what was Mitt Romney's old childhood home, like really nice neighborhood. 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.360 Apparently crime increases in these neighborhoods as well, at about 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.800 the same rate, not aggregate number of crimes, but at 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.120 the same percentage increase. I think right, that's a big um. 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:39.680 That's a big finding. Um. Apparently they raised Mitt Romney's 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.120 birthplace birthplace home in Detroit. But the um, there's this 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.600 whole idea. UM it's called broken windows theory. And these 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:53.959 two guys named um oh, George Kelling and James Wilson 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.960 came up with this idea that UM, if you police 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.480 small off like if you, if you, if you like 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:06.880 really throw the pickpockets in jail, and like write tickets 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.480 to teenagers who are like playing their music too loud, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.040 and make sure that the broken windows and like a 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:17.880 house are repaired. Like you kind of sustained the sense 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:23.479 of order, and from order, you know, comes the abidment 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.360 of law supposedly, so it trickles up pretty much. Yeah, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:29.480 it is this paying attention to the small stuff supposedly 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.520 has an effect on the big stuff. It makes total sense, um, 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.320 But studies have kind of found, like there's not a 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:41.520 lot of actual quantitative evidence backing this up necessarily, but 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.000 it creates this mindset um they think that possibly, like 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:49.080 everyone points to Times Square, so like the police commissioner 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.360 who came in with Giuliani and like cleaned up Times Square, 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:58.240 he was in the broken windows. I can't even imagine now, 0:14:58.440 --> 0:14:59.920 I never went to Time Square and it was like 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:01.960 that I saw the tail end of it. I can't 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.960 imagine what it must have been like. If you watch 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.280 basket Case, he's walking around Times Square, It's like that's 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:12.840 Times Square, that's Times Squire's crazy. You know, where's the 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.880 Disney store exactly? Um, but so the commissioner was into 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.040 broken windows policing, and they very firmly believe like that's 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.640 what cleaned up Times Square. A lot of people say, well, 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.480 maybe it was the end of the crack epidemic. Maybe 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.640 that cleaned up Times Square. Maybe it was lead got 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.480 out of our our brains. Remember that one, Remember that 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.400 the real criminal element lead from Mother Jones is awesome 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.480 article that ties together the decline and crime in New 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.400 York and elsewhere to the decline and the prevalence of 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.840 lead in like our air in the world. Um So, 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:50.480 there's a lot of other things that it could be. 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.400 But there's this idea that if you if you fix 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.240 the windows in an abandoned home, the crime will decrease. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:00.880 But like you said, they find the same amount of 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:07.440 crime in nice areas or you know, already low income areas. Yeah, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.120 I think it's the same increase in crime rate because 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:10.400 I don't think there's no way it could be the 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.160 same amount of crime right once the house is vacated there, 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.400 So like even if you live in a good neighborhood, 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:18.840 you're still going to see like if that half a 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.680 million dollar home is vacant, you're gonna see increasing crime. Yeah, 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.200 and that kind of supports that broken windows theory. Yeah, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:25.760 is that true, though, I just have a hard time 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:30.760 believing that, Um, percentage wise, it could probably be the same. Yeah, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.600 because think about it. If you have, like, um, I'm 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:34.920 just trying to picture my brother's neighborhood and like, if 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.680 there were a couple of empty homes there, like there 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.040 wouldn't be like rapes and murders and drug deals going 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.000 down there. Well, think about this if you if you 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:45.640 he lives in a nice neighborhood. At my point, if 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.000 you have, like, if you have like ten burglaries in 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:53.080 an area and the a new abandoned house opens up, 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.240 ten more burglaries happen, it's a increase. If you have 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.520 one burglary in an area and open abandoned how opens 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.960 up in a high income here you have one, that's 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.080 another increase. I can buy that statistics, you know. Yeah, 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.040 I hear you, But it does make sense. Yeah. Yeah. 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.600 The reason why is because an abandoned home attracts people 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:15.560 who normally, um might not have a place to congregate 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:20.320 and carry out illegal activity. Yeah, do drugs squat I'm 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.840 not gonna judge squatters, but a right uh, so what 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.119 can you do. We realize it's a blade on the neighborhood, 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.720 crime goes up. It's no good for anyone we feel 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.840 sorry for, you know, if it is a family that 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.520 couldn't afford their house, it's very sad. And actually, actually 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.600 the house next to this one, I do feel really 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:40.560 bad because his family lived there for a long time. 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.879 The guy was a trucker and out of nowhere. One 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:45.639 week I looked up and noticed the truck wasn't in 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:49.119 the driveway, and no furniture was in the house, and 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.320 there was like, you know, sheet of paper tape to 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.600 the front door. It's a good out. I don't know 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.119 what it said. I guess I'm not sure what the 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:57.960 deal is, but you can get this guy. You should 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.440 tell him that he may still own that house. I 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:01.920 don't know if he owned it though, to be honest, 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.520 he may have been a renter. Oh well, that's another thing, like, yeah, 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:08.080 if you're renting in somethings forth clothes on your well. Yeah, 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.280 but this lady I know did own the house and 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.440 possibly good news. Just yesterday I saw two dudes checking 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:16.560 it out, and of course I hustle out there and 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:18.440 was like, hey, dude, are you going to buy this house? 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.159 And he was being ky. I think he totally is, 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.840 but he said maybe someone sure is and I said great. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:28.840 I guess he was trying to like, good to meet you, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.800 a weirdo, sniff me off the case or something, and 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.960 sniff off the case. There's never been like an older adage, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:42.240 or it's actually not old. He's made it up. But um, yeah, 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.080 he was trying to get me off his case, I think. 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.160 And so I was like, dude, please buy this house 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.560 and fix it up. But that's what we're after here. Yeah, 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.159 he's going to hit you up for a subsidy. Now 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.000 I don't know, played all your cards. So what do 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:57.720 you do. Let's say that guy had never showed up 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.800 and you had not one but to abandoned homes in 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:01.920 the neighborhoods. Well, you could do what I think the 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:03.800 next door neighbor to the house did, which was called 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.520 the county and here they called it a Darryl house. 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.200 I guess, um, you would just call the code enforcement 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.200 officer and explain the situation and they will, you know, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.919 six months later, probably start to do some investigating as 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.920 to the back taxes, who owns it, what, like state 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.240 it's in, Yeah, inspections, that kind of thing exactly, and 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.560 then they'll start writing tickets against it, and there'll be 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:29.639 more and more leans try to find the owner um, 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.320 and like we said, that can get very very difficult. 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:34.760 And then even when you find the owner, it may 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.520 be an LLC that disbanded and no longer has any 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:42.400 legal obligation to to claim ownership of that place. Um. 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.320 And at that point when it becomes unclear as to 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.600 who owns the place um. Some counties is becoming such 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.480 a problem that some counties are setting up land trusts, yeah, 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.800 where like they'll take a certain percentage of property taxes, 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:02.320 especially ones that are like back taxes that are paid, 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.880 Like when that guy across the street buys that house, 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.159 he's gonna have to pay those taxes in addition to 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.640 to purchasing it. So even if the county takes possession 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.160 that somebody is still gonna have to pay those back 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.159 taxes usually, right, Yeah, So the county might take like 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.119 five percent of those and set it aside into this 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.639 land trust for for houses that no one will ever claim, 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.280 and they'll either use it to raise the place to 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.359 rehabilitate the place, um. Maybe they'll use it to subsidize 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.600 a community development group that wants to turn it into 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.240 a community center. There's a lot of like new ideas 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.520 that people are, you know, coming up with to handle 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.640 abandoned properties because it's becoming such a problem. Well, it's 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.360 definitely hard to wrap your head around as an American 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.000 there being that many homeless people and that many abandoned homes. 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.399 And I'm not saying no, just move all the homeless 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:53.760 people in there, because it's way more complicated than that, obviously, 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.159 but it's definitely kind of weird to think about. Well. Yeah, well, 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.440 I mean it's it's so complicated. Like even if you said, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:00.879 you know what, I'm tired of this, I'm gonna go 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:05.360 across the street and mow the lawn. You could be sued. Yeah, 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.040 you could be sued. If you hurt yourself, you could 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.320 be arrested for trespassing. If you hurt yourself, you could 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.520 be sued, you could be liable for insurance on the property. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.200 There's a lot of like it's extremely complex and it's 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.800 extremely intricate, and then throw into the mix that you 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.760 might not know who the owner is. Yeah, and nobody 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.040 wants to touch this place. What if I snuck over 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.320 in the dead of night to steal an azalea bush? 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.119 What does the law say about that? Probably trespassing and theft. Okay, 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.840 but it's all petty. I haven't done that. Just don't 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.280 break your ankle on the property that threatened to do that, Well, 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:42.760 don't because that'll be bad for you. It's really it's 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:44.959 like the nicest plant on that and there's only one 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.719 nice plan on the property. I feel like that may 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.440 be a trophy for having to look at this place. Yeah, 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.040 maybe we'll see. Yeah, I don't know. If that thing disappears, 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:58.280 it's not my faulty. Even though it's in your backyard. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:00.680 To some planet, it would definitely not be in my 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.040 right yard. Um, you got anything else? Um? Yeah, Well, 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.840 we talked about Detroit Um to open the show and 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.000 the fact that they have a lot of houses that 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.240 they are raising. That's how they're taking care of their problem. 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:18.600 Just yesterday, the city has decided to uh utilize about 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.360 a hundred million dollars and unused federal funds originally intended 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:27.200 to prevent foreclosures to quote aggressively address blight. That's what 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.639 the Governor, Rick Snyder said, yesterday and they're gonna use 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.080