Once you put a bunch of renters in you may be stuck with them...

Why is everyone so negative. What about the people who pay their rent every month on time but the home owners haven't made the payments. The bank takes the house and the people are left out in the cold.
I think the letter was just about bank foreclosed homes.

Brilliant answer, Marlene! It does seem like a win/win. I think the problem is the banks just don't care. Perhaps the people handling the foreclosures are out of the area - like India! Any local bankers want to weigh in?

The other problem could be that the property management companies would be fostering competition for their existing clients from bank owned properties. The added competition would have a downward effect on rents, and possibly lose goodwill from the existing clients.

"Brilliant answer, Marlene! It does seem like a win/win situation. etc."

Actually, it's not. The bank will be lucky to get half of the note in rent and they are looking at possible damage that has to come out of the rent. Then there is the normal wear and tear of the home itself. Then there is the insurance they have to put into the property. Many of the homes have to be improved and cleaned before they are rented.

The solution is simple, too simple and it does not win at all. If it did, the bank would have thought it in the first place.

You must work for a bank...what your trying to say is, banks look at the bottom line, people are of no interest to them.
I guess that's true, but working up a little good will may help them in the long run, when the economy is on the upswing again.
just a thought!

Have you looked at any foreclosed homes? Some are trashed. A vacant house will go downhill fast.
The banks and loan companies should have had a little compassion while the buyers were struggling, and helped them out before they moved out. Could have let a few late payments due be added to the end of the loan, even if it was 10 months worth. The banks would still have the loan, and the people would still have their house.
It's a shame that banks are so tight that they end up screwing themselves in the end by not understanding that some people fall on hard times through no fault of their own.

Actually, it is a brilliant idea. Never work though, because it would require bank employees to actually (gasp!) work for a living.

But, no, you're right, much better to have a bunch of vacant houses with dead landscaping, getting vandalized, and robbed. That's what I like seeing around town. You too?

Well, then, what's your brilliant solution?

First of all the banks and lenders do not own most of these foreclosures, they were packaged up and sold to investors, with misleading ratings of many borrowers. You cannot get your return on your investment by renting well below the value of your investment. Never mind the expense of being a landlord.

"Well, then, what's your brilliant solution?"

You are so negative about bankers. They are full of people like you and me. Some are smart and some are not so smart. If all of those banks, and other companies that are holding those notes all over the nation have not rented those houses there is good reasons they have not.

If I had a solution, I would be able to contact congress and tell them not to give the Treasury Department any money because of this idea. Obviously I don't have the answer, but I do know renting out the houses is not the answer. It is not a brilliant answer.

There are too many people out there who sit on their duff and blame the world for all of the problems out there. The problem in a nutshell is deregulation that started in the Reagan Administration and was sped up in the current Bush administration.

"You must work for a bank...what your trying to say is, banks look at the bottom line, people are of no interest to them.
I guess that's true, but working up a little good will may help them in the long run, when the economy is on the upswing again.
just a thought!"

I am self-employed and am not associated in banking at all; but, I bank in a bank. If my bank was not interested in the bottom line, I would find another bank. You might try banking at Salvation Army. A bank is supposed to safeguard my money. I don't want it to do anything else. Oh, by the way, my bank is on very sound footing.

My bank is also solid,that is a banks business and they do it well. I own my home (at a low FIXED rate). through a bank. So you can stop with the snide remarks. I just think in times like this, banks could bend a little for renters who did nothing wrong to get in this position.

I want my bank to be in the business of making a profit in banking...not in the renters wellfare business.