re: #140 ralphieboy

banks would rather just sit on foreclosed houses rather than take the write-down involved in selling them

There’s a little more to it than that. Rehabbing, bankruptcy litigation, etc. all add many thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) to the costs lenders are faced with absorbing. Many lenders have entire departments dedicated to minimizing those costs, and establishing the point of loss they can take. In the case of credit unions, they need to walk a fine line between selling properties and how big of a hit the members can absorb.

Couple that with fewer buyers able to qualify, and there are a lot of houses banks are sitting on, and not necessarily for purely selfish reasons.