There is no excuse for homes sitting empty. A home should be empty for no more than 90 days.
The foreclosure process can be made much more efficient. We need a public auction system where all the bidders are pre-qualified through one of the GSEs and each person/entity is assigned a bidder ID number. All transactions/entities should be tracked and audited periodically for irregularities. There should be open bids where the bid amounts, terms, and ID number of the bidder is visible to all other bidders. Mimimum 14-40 day listings on the govt-run site, and highest and best bid wins.
No middlemen, no fraud (it would be fully transparent, with HUGE penalties for anyone caught trying to scam the system), and regular end-users would be on the same footing as flippers/speculators.
