Who dropped the ball? - Las Vegas Sun: "Banks and other mortgage lenders are turning out to be lousy neighbors. Foreclosed homes featuring brown lawns and fetid swimming pools litter the Las Vegas Valley because the lenders that hold title have failed to keep the properties up.

The epidemic is especially acute in neighborhoods regulated by homeowners associations, whose rules require property owners to maintain their properties. Enforcement of those rules is another matter, however."
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Thanks to Monica Caruso and Fred Pilot who both sent me this. I say hold onto your hat, because this is going to be a long and difficult ride for HOA and condo owners.

Update: Fred Pilot sent a comment to this post that I am taking the liberty of cutting and pasting here in the hope that more people will see it and respond:

"Who dropped the ball? I agree with the macroeconomic analysis that nobody in particular but everyone did. The housing market was fueled by irrational exuberance and its cousin, easy terms and conditions and minimal if any underwriting by the mortgage and financial markets that purchased the underlying mortgage obligations.

"Privately governed HOAs since they tend to have much smaller property tax bases than municipalities and counties will have a far more difficult time than the latter riding out this severe market correction to wring out the excesses of cheap and easy mortgages.

"The supporters and defenders of local government privatization don't seem to understand that in addition to lacking constitutional checks and balances on their exercise of power since they are not political subdivisions of the state, privately governed HOAs also lack sufficient fiscal (and political) economies of scale to easily sustain these kinds of inevitable market cycles. At some point, the fiscal pressures can become so great that the HOA also becomes unviable as a governing entity since no one desires to govern an entity that is effectively bankrupt."