I‘m an investor, and I buy foreclosed houses, renovate them, then re-sell them as nice homes. Twice, I‘ve purchased a house where someone had gone inside, then removed and stole all the copper plumbing in the basement. Then I had to spend money to re-pipe it in order to get the water back on. Both times, the house was a HUD house, rather than a bank-owned one. I know that HUD has master keys for all of their listed properties for sale (each house could be one of 5 keys), so do thieves have a way of getting copies of HUD keys? They are basic ordinary house keys that can be easily duplicated at any hardware store.You‘d think HUD would have better security than that, like using special keys that can‘t be duplicated.
Theft of copper pipe happens a lot in any low-income neighborhood. it has nothing to do with HUD or HUD keys. .and to Steve S, do you think people should be able to keep their house whether or not they pay their mortgage? and what is it these people on the bones of?
HUD keys are given ONLY to real estate agents who are qualified to possess them. But, as with any other key, they are subject to possible copy. That being said, do you not INSPECT houses before you buy them ? Anyone with functioning eyes can see that the copper piping may be missing.
if the price of scrap copper is high any where its easy to get copper it will be stolen the chances of getting caught pinching copper pipes and wires from empty houses is? Does it bother you that your making money on houses taken from people on the bones of their ****?
