Tracking Abandoned Houses
For almost two years Mark McKinzie sat and looked at the abandoned property next to his house in east Murrieta.
But instead of just fuming about it like most folks, McKinzie did something about it: He started a Web site to publicize wrecked properties, the goal being to shame the property owners, usually some big lender, into doing something about it.
It’s called LenderOffender.com and here’s a sample comment about a Winchester home posted last week: “This thing has been abandoned forever, completely rotted out, right down to the missing peephole in the front door.”
Feel the rage in that post? This is like the ultimate cathartic experience for frustrated homeowners tired of living amid foreclosed squalor: Take a picture of that abandoned house that’s been driving you bonkers, ship it to McKinzie’s site, and let rip the most damning comments imaginable.
Wow, that felt good.
McKinzie has good reason to be frustrated. He moved here in 2002 from Poway and paid $273,000 for a 3,200-square-foot house. He invested $35,000 in the front yard to make it look first class.
At the peak a few years ago he estimates it was worth an ungodly $580,000. Then came the tidal wave of foreclosures, including the wreck next door.
Now that house, same size as his, is on the market for $223,000.
“I never thought it would go below what we paid for it,” he says. “It’s just disgusting. Not only are they (abandoned houses) a disgrace to the neighborhood, but they lower the values of our homes.”
He takes out his angst on his Web site. He started it in mid-January with pictures of about 100 lender-owned houses he had no trouble finding in southwest Riverside County. A program manager for a technology company, he had the expertise to get it up and running in no time.
It’s definitely a labor of love for McKinzie. He has advertisers, but that just covers costs. “It’s more of a hobby,” he says. “It’s not a business.”
Besides a photo of the abandoned property, residents can attach a graphic to it, including icons for a brown lawn, a black lawn, green pools, garbage, and, my personal favorite, holiday lights. Yes, there is nothing more festive than Christmas lights on an abandoned home in July.
Sarcasm is a recurring theme in the descriptions of about 300 homes on the site. Of one Florida property, a writer says: “Broken windows, door wide open and large sprigs of parsley growing in lawn. Oh, but what pretty Xmas lites (sic).”
A property in Winchester gets this ringing endorsement: “Black and flat . . . nice look for the neighborhood.”
Andy Warhol talked about everybody getting 15 minutes of fame and McKinzie is definitely getting his. TV stations in San Diego, LA, and Baltimore have done stories on his site, as well as CNN. Don’t worry local chamber of commerce types, he’s often described as “a California man.” Whew! We wouldn’t want anybody to get the idea that, like, well, you know, we might have a little foreclosure problem.
McKinzie is having an impact. Wells Fargo has promised to clean up any properties posted on the Web site. And he does take properties off the site that the lender tells him have been fixed up, four so far. “That’s exactly what I wanted to accomplish,” he says. “The bank was called out and the bank moved fast.”
So don’t just get mad, frustrated homeowners, make a post on McKinzie’s Web site. Shame is a powerful thing, even to those big banks we all love so much.