Across region, vacant homes are more common than ever before

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The U.S. Census Bureau, in its most recent 10-year survey, listed the following statistics of home occupancy in its 2010 Census Summary File 1. In order for a housing unit to be listed as vacant, it must first have been determined to be habitable.

2010 2000

Vacant Percent Vacant Percent

units of total units of total

Acushnet 163 4.1 86 3.2

Dartmouth 538 4.8 284 2.7

Fairhaven 331 5.0 231 3.5

Freetown 101 3.2 59 2.0

Lakeville 127 3.4 93 2.8

Marion 118 6.2 99 5.0

Mattapoisett 121 4.8 102 4.0

New Bedford 4,055 10.5 3,225 8.4

Rochester 52 2.8 44 2.7

Wareham 809 8.9 450 5.5

Westport 263 4.3 159 3.0

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They’re obvious in virtually every suburban subdivision, on almost every city block.

There are no curtains in the windows. The grass didn’t get the last, needed mowing of the fall. And no matter how early the sun sets as we head toward winter, the lights never go on.

Vacant houses — magnets to vagrants, firebugs and thieves — are more common than ever across the SouthCoast, products of the general economic suffering and the ever-increasing numbers of bank foreclosures.

The scope of the problem unfolded in data released by the U.S. Census Bureau last month revealing that 6,678 housing units were vacant across the area when the national census survey was conducted last year. That’s 7.5 percent of SouthCoast’s housing units, a dramatic increase from the 4,832 units reported vacant in the previous census in 2000.

These are not fire-ravaged hulks or houses with caved-in roofs. The Census didn’t call a housing unit vacant unless it was considered liveable.

While the bulk of SouthCoast’s vacant units were in New Bedford (4,055, or 10 percent of the city’s housing stock), the problem was widespread, and it was expanding.

“It’s not just inner cities; it’s everywhere,” said Carl W. Taber, executive vice president and chief lending officer at Citizens-Union Savings Bank.

“It’s not at any one price point,” said Ralph Grassia, regional vice president of sales for Jack Conway Co. Realtor. “It’s not any one city or town. There’s no demographic or geographic. It’s all over.”

Local officials don’t necessarily believe the Census numbers, but they don’t deny the existence of the problem.

“That number sounds highly inflated,” Police Chief Carlton E. Abbott, Jr. responded when told the Census pegged Freetown’s vacant housing at 101 units.

His Acushnet counterpart had a similar reaction, saying he checked with the assessors, who claimed the number was closer to 30 than the 163 reported by the Census. “Even half that number is high,” Michael Alves said.

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‘it’s just blown up’

The seeds of the vacant-housing problem were sown in the easy-credit era of the mid-2000s and fertilized by the subsequent downward economic spiral that cut employment and depressed the prices of homes.

Six or eight years ago, “The mortgage companies and the big banks had thrown out all the rules,” Taber said. “They were giving out loans to just anybody. Unfortunately, it’s just blown up.”

When unemployment spiked, many new homeowners lost their jobs and the ability to pay their mortgages. Some just walked away from the problem.

“It’s almost advantageous for people to walk away from their home rather than to stay and try to negotiate different terms with their bank,” said Bob Lima, broker manager at R.P. Valois Real Estate in Dartmouth. “Why struggle through it? The banking system is making it easier to walk away than to work through your problems in the old-fashioned way.”

Smaller community banks and lenders tried to work with their customers in an effort to keep people in their homes.

“We work with customers right to the bitter end,” Taber said of Citizens-Union. “If we get to the end and there’s no other alternative, then we will foreclose, but we try to avoid that at all costs. Right now, we don’t have any properties in foreclosure.”

“We’ll try to modify their mortgage payment, maybe temporarily reduce their interest rate, until they get back on their feet or sell the house on their own. We’ll do more short sales,” allowing the property owner to sell the home for less than the amount remaining on the mortgage. “We’re open to pretty much anything as long as the borrower remains in communication.”

Not so the larger, predatory lenders.

“A lot of banks did not want to do workouts with homeowners,” Grassia said. “The smaller banks are much easier to work with. The big ones can be a little more challenging.”

Their response was to drop the foreclosure hammer in record numbers.

Last year, lenders foreclosed on 1,280 properties in Bristol County and 1,231 in Plymouth County, annual increases of 44.8 percent and 31.9 percent, respectively, according to the The Warren Group, publisher of Banker Tradesman.

The banks try to sell those homes, but many remain empty.

Magnets for trouble

When homes are empty, they attract trouble.

“I would say there is a more noticeable amount of vacant, bank-owned properties than before,” Fairhaven Police Chief Michael J. Myers said. “Sometimes this has led to breaking and entering as a result of the homes being unoccupied.”

“We’ve had to move homeless people who were in houses hanging around,” Acushnet Chief Alves said. “We’ve had juveniles partying in vacant homes. I don’t think that’s anything uncommon in any community.”

Sometimes unauthorized people take up residence.

“We had one property where someone was going in and out through a cellar window under the porch,” Grassia said. “When he heard someone come in, he would duck out the window and hide under the porch until they left.”

Empty houses might not seem like prime targets for thieves, but they’re not looking for belongings or furnishings. They’re looking for actual parts of the structures: copper pipes, which then can be sold as scrap metal.

In Freetown, “We have had some uninhabited homes where thieves have removed copper piping and other articles,” Abbott said. “This, however, is a small number.”

It’s not so small in other communities, however, and has drawn the attention of the state attorney general, who filed legislation to address the issue.

“The growth of abandoned properties and the skyrocketing value of metals have undermined public safety in our communities,” Martha Coakley said. “Lack of proper registration and oversight has made it too easy for thieves to strip out the copper and other metals, realizing profits from the vandalization of property and even the desecration of memorials.”

The bill would require stricter record-keeping by scrap metal dealers and establish an abandoned property registry. Slightly different versions have passed the House and Senate and the legislation is likely to be enacted in the upcoming weeks.

Harder to sell

A vacant home can be harder to sell, putting an extra burden on real estate companies.

“We handle a lot of properties for banks,” Grassia said. “We become almost custodians. The listing agents have to keep checking the properties and you never know what’s going to happen, a broken pipe, a broken window … Everybody has to be lot more diligent.”

And vigilant.

“You’ve got to be prepared out there. It is a little scary. Generally we don’t show empty properties at night,” Grassia said.

It isn’t easy to get a sense of home in a vacant house.

“It’s always nice to walk in and smell an apple pie or cookies baking in the oven,” Grassia said. When a house is empty, “there’s no warm, home feeling. You’re showing a structure. People live in homes. They don’t live in empty boxes.”

While current economic conditions have suppressed home sales, they’ve been a boon for the rental market.

“The rental market is the hottest thing going right now,” Lima said. “Rather than buying, people who are unsure where they might be in a year or two are renting.”

And they have plenty of properties to choose from.

“For people that bought five or six years ago and maybe had to move away or bought another house, for them to sell now is rough,” Lima said. “They might be better off getting someone to rent and hope the market bounces back.”

Grassia said: “People who could not afford a $3,000-a-month mortgage payment might be able to afford $1,800 for rent. They’re living in a nice home and it’s not costing them as much money.”

Will the housing market every bounce back?

“Are we ever going to see the type of appreciation we saw in 2005? Grassia asked, then answered, “I don’t think we’ll ever see that again.”

Banker Taber said: “I think the situation will stay about the same for a while until consumer confidence goes up, until employment goes up, until housing prices stabilize. We have never been through something like this before, at least not for so long. No one ever expected it would be this prolonged, this deep.”

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