by Calculated Risk on 2/25/2007 12:46:00 PM

From U.S. News & World Report on Denver: A House Unsold, the Dream Dims

The ... result is ... [a] vicious cycle of "for sale" signs, foreclosures, then more "for sale" signs that is all but devastating Montbello. Bank-owned properties now represent more than 80 percent of all homes on the market there, putting even seemingly stable homeowners like Garcia up against a financial wall.

"I just can't take it anymore," he says of his street's overgrown yards, abandoned houses, and declining property values. "I put so much into this house and this community, but I don't have no equity."

With more than 2,500 square feet, new kitchen cabinets, tile, and a recently finished basement apartment, Garcia's house two years ago "would have gone for $210,000, maybe more," says David Cabrera, the real-estate agent whom Garcia hired last fall to sell the home, now priced at $195,500. "But nobody's buying now with all the foreclosures."

Garcia orginally paid $207,000 for this house four and a half years ago.