Move-outs for money
Not all squatters are as tenacious as Dobbs. Some only want to stick around long enough to get a payoff from the lender to evacuate.
Banks, in order to speed up the eviction process and avoid legal action, are paying these occupants as much as several thousand dollars to get them out quickly, a strategy known as "cash for keys."
This practice, real-estate agents and law enforcement officials say, has encouraged all kinds of ne'er-do-wells to break into vacant foreclosure properties in hopes of earning a little extra cash.
"They get a place to live for a couple of months rent-free and the banks will give them a couple thousand in moving expenses," Wood says.
Some are pulling this scam repeatedly in a number of properties once they find out which lenders are paying.
If someone knows, for instance, that a particular lender is paying $3,000 for people to move out of their vacant properties, Roberts says, they have more incentive to target several of its properties for squatting.
"It's like they're letting people walk into the vault and take money," Roberts says.
Often, the same real-estate firm or lender keeps the same code for its lockboxes, making it easier for trespassers to move in once they get a code or combination.
Neighbors band together
Because these squatters have been so hard to evict, neighbors in many high-foreclosure communities have been forced to take matters into their own hands.
After squatters moved into several houses in Scott Elliot's 1,100-home gated community in Riverside County, Calif., he and other neighbors banded together to make life difficult for the squatters that police refused to throw out and to try to prevent new ones from moving in.
They tipped off the local news channel about these occupants to get news crews out filming them, and they formed a neighborhood watch of all of Victoria Grove's empty houses. They collected phone numbers for the local police as well as for the real-estate asset managers of all the vacant properties, and the neighbors called whenever they saw suspicious activity.
"In 15 to 20 minutes, we can have 30 people there standing outside. It's a show of force," says Elliot, a retired attorney who heads the community maintenance association.
In one case, these neighbors called the authorities early enough to get a new set of squatters out, who had pulled up to a house a half-hour after the last ones had been evicted, Elliot says.
"We are learning as we go," Elliot says. "We have succeeded in getting five groups of squatters out. I think we have the upper hand now, and our community is really together for the first time."
Agents, too, have had to step up their own surveillance of properties they are listing and take proactive measures to prevent them from being occupied, such as taking out all the toilets from a home or turning off utilities.
"I have my properties inspected once a week," Tennant says. "But most of the time access is being gained in the evenings or weekends."
Not just the bank's problem
Agents say the problem of squatting is only going to get worse as the unprecedented wave of foreclosures works its way through the system. Bill Collins, a real-estate broker with ERA Queen Realty in South Orange, N.J., says it is becoming a much bigger problem in his area.
"A lot of properties that were in very good condition are winding up falling through the cracks and being inhabited by squatters," Collins says. That's bad for the safety and value of the surrounding community, he says. And, it puts more strain on everyone; not only agents, but also police and sheriff's officers who are being repeatedly called out to these properties.
Tennant and others are pressing for more arrests in this "grand theft house." Police "need to react swiftly and harshly to this," Tennant says. "They need to send the message to someone with an organized criminal background that this isn't acceptable."
