Bus tour gives people look at foreclosed houses
The white shuttle bus came to a stop and Damon Borozny joked to the passengers, “All right, time to scare the neighbors.”
Borozny, a product manager for an office supply business, was helping lead a new kind of tour for Atlanta — the home foreclosure tour.
A dozen people paid $49, or $65 per couple, to spend five hours Sunday checking out other people’s broken dreams and possibly find a deal.
Real estate agents have held private foreclosure tours, but last weekend’s tour may have been the first in metro Atlanta open to the public. It drew home-seekers, investors and even tax-lien purchasers.
At stop No. 5 on the seven-house expedition, the group examined a 4-year-old, two-story home on Glenvalley Drive in Decatur that looked beautiful in the dappled sunshine of a color photograph.
In March 2006 the house sold for $275,000. It sold again in May 2007 as a foreclosure, bringing $206,550. Now the lender had it back and was asking $176,900.
Upon closer inspection, the dwelling revealed its wounds. The back door was boarded after vandals broke out the glass. Holes were bashed in the bedroom walls. Cabinet hardware, the air conditioning condenser and gutter sections had been stolen.
Still, the visitors saw potential. “I want this house — in Midtown,” said Evelyn Swanson, a consultant who lives in a Midtown bungalow that feels cramped.
After 20 minutes of opening cabinets and eyeballing the foundation, the group moved on to stop No. 6 — a small house in the Reynoldstown neighborhood of Atlanta where moisture curled the wood floors and stacked cinderblocks obstruct a doorway.
Foreclosures have risen because easy credit put many people in homes they could not afford. Equity Depot reported last week that more than 6,000 metro properties are scheduled to be sold on courthouse steps next month. Lenders will end up buying back many of the homes.
Borozny and Butch Whitfield, an agent with Harry Norman Realtors, started Foreclosure Tour and Learn after hearing about similar operations elsewhere.
Borozny bought his Grant Park home this year out of foreclosure. He had lived in it as a renter, then was evicted when his landlord lost the property.
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