CBS Evening News On Squatters Moving Into Foreclosed Homes

In Sacramento, California, the CBS Evening News ran a story last night showing its correspondent, Ben Tracy, tagging along with a couple of local code enforcement officers making the rounds, inspecting vacant and often vandalized foreclosed homes taken back by the bank, bumping into occasional squatters along the way. Some are simply looking for a place to live. Then, there are the others, as this excerpt describes:

• Some of these squatters are even more brazen. they'll clean a place up, get the power hooked up, then they'll change the locks on the door and actually rent it out, collecting money on a place they don't even own. Real estate fraud detective Mike Wood says scammers reel in unsuspecting tenants by posting on sites such as Craigslist. "It's not till months later that the bank finally sends someone to check on the house and to discover that someone's actually living in there," Wood said. That makes it hard to know who belongs and who doesn't.

To read more, see The Frontlines Of The Foreclosure Crisis (After Banks Take Over Homes, Squatters Move In, Leaving Enforcement In A Bind).

For the CBS News video on this story, see Squatters On The Rise (A recent survey found that in 33 percent of cities nationwide vacant homes and blight).

Go here for posts on squatters taking up residency in vacant foreclosures.

Go here and go here for other posts on scammers running rent hoaxes, collecting fast cash by renting out homes they don't own. unwitting tenant rent scam yacht squatter foreclosure zebra