Firedoglake – This searing photo essay show in stark relief the landscape of the foreclosure crisis, in this case in Florida. By now we all know the details. Foreclosures are continuing at a reord pace, three years after the beginning of the recession. This massive turnover of property has turned entire neighborhoods into ghost towns and continued to be a drag on the economy. While there are higher incidences in “sand states” where the housing bubble inflated larger than elsewhere, this crisis is far from being localized to one region, and is prevalent all over the country. The potential damage over the next few years is even greater, as one out of every three homes in cities like Boise, Idaho are underwater.

We know that banks and loan servicers have massive incentives to foreclose, and then in many cases keep the homes off the market and in shadow inventory, avoiding the realization of a loss on their books. Banks who made crucial errors in the origination and securitization stages don’t want to be held responsible for those mistakes, and think the best way to go about that is by burying the evidence. So they have rushed to foreclose on borrowers who could have handled a loan modification, in many cases illegally so. And the stories keep getting tallied up day by day. Banks are foreclosing on the wrong homes, ones that don’t even have mortgages. Homeowners who are current on their loans are getting thrown out of their homes. Banks are faking summons, faking documents, faking notarizations, even faking lawyers, all in a desperate and chaotic effort to foreclose.

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