Flipping Houses - The Buffalo Experience

[Shirley]

I have the DVD Flipped. I watched it and it is a real eye opener. If someone would like to watch it please send me a message and I will try to get a copy to you. Watching the DVD I could not stop thinking how much the houses resemble homes in Youngstown. I easily found around 200 properties in Youngstown owned by people out of state. 
Below are just a few. I tried not to list mortgage companies. There were so many I found it is hard to keep track of all of them.

909      Rigby   Houston, TX   11,174   07/27/06
728      Roxbury   Louisville, TX   20,000   06/21/07
3106      Rush   Los Angeles, CA   32,000   03/09/07
620      Samuel   Flushing, NY   21,105   09/22/06
216      Saranac   Villa Park, CA   15,300   05/02/07
306      Scott   Covina, CA   16,885   12/02/06
1480      Shehy   Covina, CA   16,885   01/10/07
1566      Shehy   Baldwin, LA   12,500   07/21/06
330      Sherwood   Bulimda, QLD UK   10,900   06/20/07
413      Sherwood   Ventura, CA   14,300   07/13/06
419      Sherwood   Sacramento, CA   11,800   12/05/06
1488      Stewart   Colorado Springs, CO   10,522   01/29/07
558       Sunshine   New Egypt, NJ   18,000   06/05/07
1018      Turin   Evanston, WY      11/02/06
227      Upland   Morgantown, WV   17,000   06/21/07
2664      Volney   Sierra Vista, AZ   9,995   02/08/07
581      Warren   Winter Springs, FL   12,000   04/12/07

Not all are vacant but I am sure some are. Some of the people probably do put some money into them for rental.
Doing some research on the internet I found the following comment:

"Online flipping is happening in economically distressed cities in New York, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The practice, local government leaders say, is destabilizing already weakened urban neighborhoods by displacing legitimate investment."

[jay]

Please take the time to view the DVD about the flipping of houses in Buffalo, NY.  Many more houses are now vacant in Buffalo as a result of flipping.  Some estimate that the total number of vacant structures in Buffalo now exceeds 16,000.

I recently viewed the flipping DVD thanks to one of our Forum members.  The problem of flipping is also happening in the city of Youngstown.  Buffalo is trying to take the lead in solving the problem.  How does the Youngstown city administration plan to tackle this urban decay issue?