New $59M city program aims to fix and sell foreclosed homes

In response to the glut of foreclosed homes, the city has created a program which renovates foreclosed homes and sells them to private owners for less than their market value. “Houses that sit vacant are a destabilizing force on the entire neighborhood,” said Rafael Cestero, commissioner of the Housing Preservation Department, on NY1. Through the $59 million program, the city hopes to purchase 400 homes in neighborhoods across the city that have been hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis including homes in central Brooklyn and southeast Queens.