Forgotten Providence

Sold for a whopping $335K in 2005. Foreclosure in 2007.

Update 6/3/09

Back door wide open.

Multiple time boarded loser here—at least once since 2001. Currently wide open to the breezes or whatever else blows in. Someone has started work on the interior—you can see the plaster tore down to the studs. New wiring too.

But no one to call it home.

Update 5/03/09 by Funsickle

Graffiti inside and out!

Hey, don’t scoff at the picture. That was a $360,000 house in 2005.

Three suggested foreclosures here since 1998. Most recent in 2007. And there’ might be another one still waiting to hit the books.

The tips to check out Hanover street, specifically the houses making up four corners of suck at 215, 217, 214 and 218 came in from Forgotten Providence’s cycling survey pal, Phil. After spending an hour on Hanover snapping photos, and another several looking back at paper-trail*, future historians—if they exist, will boldly proclaim the rise and collapse of the American housing market from 2004-2008 (and counting) as nothing short of criminal.

The damage is staggering. The theft is staggering. This photographer, just short of a hundred houses in, is staggered. I don’t know how much longer I can keep looking at the evidence.

The scrappers running in to bust down these houses after neighborhood kids bust ‘em open; I gotta side with ‘em. As a neighbor, if my only choices are white collar pillaging vs. precious metals pillaging, call me comradé and the guys pushing stolen shopping carts Robin Hood(s).

Heavens to Murgatroyd, people. The faux-inflation of our home prices in the last half of this decade was pure, adulterated, insanity. I could care less if the scrappers or hoppers tearing these houses apart are using them to get high. The mortgage brokers, lenders, property assessors, appraisers, title companies, bank managers, and real estate agents still driving Lexuses are the chaps needing to get locked up.

It will take someone far stronger than I to tackle that order. And I haven’t even yet gotten to my Waverly photos…

_{*e-paper trail, which in Providence doesn’t mean much}

Double foreclosures here in 2006 and in 2008. Lets have a 10 year history lesson here, shall we?

1998-2008 at 217 Hanover St. in Providence Rhode Island
1998 – bought by an investor for $10K, probably got a new (used) toilet
1998 again – flipped for $47K, moving on up
1998 later still – flipped once more for $73K, alright, keep it coming
1999 through 2005 – vinyl siding happens, as does 2nd floor porch removal—definitely justifies…
2006 – saaaaaaale at $295K! Ding ding ding!
2006 – ooops, that didn’t work out, lets foreclose
2006 – hey sweet, new buyer at $142K
2007 – another $295K sale! Woohoo—after only five months, Jose L Valdera, a mortgage broker, a shady lender, and criminally negligent appraiser split $153K . Nice work fellas.
2008 – ooops, another bad sale, better foreclose on this one again. Oh well.

Missing a wholelotta’ windows.

No juice. No foreclosure data either—likely missing owner then. Graffiti and boards appear new to 2009.

Public records on 143 Hanover St:

- Boarded in 2001
- Foreclosed 2005
- Sold 2006 for $280K
- Foreclosed 2008

Was most likely owner occupied prior to house contents being dumped onto curb.

See that gem of a home to the right—a thoroughly modern update on the post-war craftsman [wink], coulda’ been yours in 2006 for only $205K. We used to build nice houses like that which have held up remarkably well considering the circumstances. What kind of odds you give it against its ancestors aging?

No sales or foreclosure data on this winner.

Anyone involved in the $340K sale OUT OF FORECLOSURE of this home in October 2006 needs a public flogging.

It’s hard to tell, but since then, it looks to have changed bank hands several times and was occupied earlier this year. But that’s a bank boarding job, so we can say it’s been foreclosed on again.

Let’s recap. Prior to this boarded state, 24 Hanover St. was:

- sold in Nov. 2004 at $266K
- foreclosure Sept. 2006
- immediately sold in in Oct. 2006 for $340K

Obviously, that sale didn’t work out either.

Right across from 137 Bellevue Ave.