Las Vegas NowRealtors Rehabbing Trashed Foreclosures

Realtors Rehabbing Trashed Foreclosures

As more foreclosures come on the market, realtors representing the banks are doing more work to get them ready. More often that not, families being forced out destroy the inside and rip out everything they can.

The median price of a house in the Las Vegas valley remains at $140,000. Those foreclosures are bringing down the cost of all homes because of the condition when the banks take them over.

Realtor Justin Fairbanks specializes in cleaning up bank owned homes so they can be sold.

The worst home he's ever seen is on Turquoise Road. On the third day of clean up, workers could finally see the floor. Bag after bag of trash was pulled from the home. The place looks a lot better now than it did when Fairbanks started cleaning it.

Fairbanks works for Platinum Real Estate Professionals specializing in foreclosures. "We are seeing some extreme cases right now where people are going in stripping fixtures, stripping lights, taking everything under the sun and leaving them in bad shape for us," he said.

A quick tour shows the damage one family can do. You can see signs of anger about the loan they signed to buy the house. Vivian Vranesh lives next door. She has to deal with the blight every day she goes outside. Still, she feels sympathetic for the family forced out by their loan. "It breaks your hear because those people did not need to lose that house. They had a little child and they did not want to leave," she said.

Fairbanks feels fro them too. He says the result brings down the value of every home in the neighborhood. "Everybody that lives here has to look at it. They have to drive by it. A property like this where there was junk, feces, trash everywhere becomes a health hazard," he said.

Buyers like Richard Zwiercan pass over trashed homes when it comes time to buy. "Saturday we looked at 17 homes. Of the 17, three of them were in decent shape that we were willing to put bids on," he said.

When beat up foreclosures sell, housing values can rise, which is why Fairbanks works so hard to make sure it's presentable.

Fairbanks says he will list the home for under $50,000 because of the amount of work that must go in it.