When your neighborhood is faced with foreclosures, the market value of your home, and in turn your home equity, can be affected. Vacant homes can become community eyesores and crime sites — factors that further affect the value of your home. There’s not much you can do to stop the foreclosures, but there are some things you can do to minimize the effects on your neighborhood.

Get your neighbors together and agree on a schedule to maintain the exterior of any foreclosed homes. Some things you can do include:

• mow and water the lawns
• rake leaves
• pick up fallen fruit
• clean pools
• collect mail and newspapers

Keep an eye out for criminal activity, and report anything suspicious to the local authorities. In most cases, a single foreclosure won’t alter the value of surrounding homes. However, a neglected property will. Do what you can to minimize the effects of foreclosure on your neighborhood.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Owning a Home, Real Estate Market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.