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Faces of the Downturn: Foreclosure crisis creates heartache, opportunity

At the Lee County courthouse, an auxiliary room is packed with investors looking to pay rock-bottom prices for foreclosed homes. This is John Carney's battlefield, where he bids on properties he will later turn around and put back on the market. By Carney's estimates he's left his mark on about six percent of all the homes in Cape Coral. Greg Kahn/Staff

Photo by GREG KAHN

At the Lee County courthouse, an auxiliary room is packed with investors looking to pay rock-bottom prices for foreclosed homes. This is John Carney's battlefield, where he bids on properties he will later turn around and put back on the market. By Carney's estimates he's left his mark on about six percent of all the homes in Cape Coral. Greg Kahn/Staff

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  • On his way to the daily foreclosure auction, John Carney teleconferences with his employees at the office to get last minute numbers on properties for sale that day. Carney has become one the biggest - if not the biggest - foreclosure property dealers in the state. He's been buying, fixing, and re-selling foreclosed properties for the last 11 years. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • John Carney, owner of Carney Properties, turns to one of his employees, Chris Heyer, right, after they discover a crack that spans the width of a pool at a home Carney recently bought at the foreclosure auction. Carney is usually aware of fixes a home needs before he buys it, but sometimes there are surprises that send him over budget. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • John Carney, still at work late in the evening, shares a laugh with some of his employees. Carney's day starts about 7 a.m. and doesn't usually finish until 11 p.m., when looks final listings for the next day's auction. Carney attributes much of his success to his dedication to his work. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • A bathroom, stripped of everything, including the tub, sits in shambles at a house in Cape Coral, Fla. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • Signs of a family that once occupied a foreclosed home in Cape Coral are scattered about the now-abandoned property as Robbie Carney inspects it for an upcoming auction. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • Robbie Carney, of Carney Properties, peeks into the front of a foreclosed home soon to be up for auction. Carney said the home, originally bought for more than $600,000, would likely sell for less than $200,000, because it was filled with Chinese drywall. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • At their weekly meeting, John Carney and his staff work through every property Carney has acquired, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. The properties are in various stages of resale, from remodeling, to marketing, to pending sale. The meeting sometimes lasts three or more hours. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • John Carney's Hummer is another sign of the investor's success despite what has become the worst recession in decades. Carney, who said he was formerly a store manager at Publix, traded in his retail career more than a dozen years ago and began investing in foreclosed properties. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • In a scene common to Southwest Florida, a foreclosed home in Cape Coral is left bare, stripped by the previous owners of all appliances. John Carney, who makes a living buying and selling foreclosed properties, says that many home owners will take everything they can fit into their vehicles the night before they are evicted. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • An eviction notice is all that remains on a abandoned foreclosed home in Cape Coral. Even at the end of 2009, Lee County deputies said they were handling about twenty evictions per day. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • At the Lee County courthouse, an auxiliary room is packed with investors looking to pay rock-bottom prices for foreclosed homes. This is John Carney's battlefield, where he bids on properties he will later turn around and put back on the market. By Carney's estimates he's left his mark on about six percent of all the homes in Cape Coral. Greg Kahn/Staff
  • In another of John Carney's soon-to-be homes, Gabriela Valderama watches friends remove furniture the night before she was to be evicted. Valderama said she put $30,000 of work into the home she was renting to buy, but because the owner didn't pay the mortgage and was foreclosed on, she had to leave it all behind. Greg Kahn/Staff

The housing downturn created work and opportunity for some entrepreneurs. At foreclosure auctions, bank-owned properties are bought and resold for a profit. In an area that outpaces the nation in mortgage defaults and lost properties, these once-quiet auctions have evolved into money-makers.

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