Foreclosed homes are taking a heavy toll on neighbors

PORTLAND, Ore. – You may not have gotten in over your head with your mortgage, but those who did could be costing you.

That's the reality for people living next to foreclosed homes. If you have to sell your home now, you are probably competing against other houses down the street that banks want off their books.

That’s what is happening in Portland’s West Hills, where one 6,576-square-foot home is now a fraction of the price after it fell into foreclosure.

The county assessed its market value at $1.2 million. The bank is asking just under $700,000 That’s a decrease of 41 percent.

Ron Pivo, a Windermere Realtor, found many similar deals in the real estate listings.

"When you have a bank-owned home in your neighborhood, it's certainly going to depress the values in the area, and you don't want to see it happen,” he said. “That's why the banks want to get rid of these. That's why the neighbors want to get rid of these homes."

Lisa and Randy Weber live on Northwest Skyline Heights Drive, where 18 houses are for sale.

“It seems like eight or nine out of 10 of them are foreclosures,” Lisa Weber said.

A house across the street from them has a county assessed market value of $773,000. But the bank is asking for just more than $406,000. That’s a 47 percent decrease.

“We don't have to sell, and so we're OK,” Randy Weber said. “But if we did, it would certainly be a bad situation to be in."

And it could be worse. A house in a nearby neighborhood that's for sale for nearly $1.2 million is right next door to another house where construction seems to have paused.

The structural skeleton with weathered plywood awaits progress while city inspectors have sent notice the building permit is about to expire.

Figuring out what your home is worth these days is tricky business. You can check out Zillow.com to get a pretty good idea, however.