Mortgage Lending: 1.3.5.2 Consequences for Communities: Vacant and “Zombie” Properties
At the community level, increased numbers of vacant properties, due to imminent and completed foreclosures, led to increased crime and blight.179 Local governments were hit hard due to the increased costs of policing and securing vacant homes and the reduction in tax revenue that followed the inevitable decline in property values.180 Between mid-2007 and the end of 2009 alone, state and local governments lost $917 million in property taxes.181 Thes