The field service industry, which is commonly referred to as the “property preservation,” “foreclosure cleanup,” or “REO junk retention” industry, has changed considerably over the years.

When the foreclosure crisis and eventual housing fiasco first gripped the real estate industry, a large number of small foreclosure contractors entered the market. Many of these micro-businesses performed a variety of mortgage field service tasks for lenders, banks, financial institutions, REO conglomerates, and asset management companies in villages and various regions of the United States of America.

A slew of larger national entities were also part of the landscape that was rapidly becoming a burgeoning property preservation industry.

Many of the larger entities, such as Pemco, Sentinel, Cyprexx, Safeguard, Chronos Solutions (formerly known as Matt Martin Real Estate Management), and a large number of similar companies, were direct and first-hand components of HUD (“Department of of Housing and Urban Development of the United States”).

These larger companies hired smaller debris removal, cleaning, and trash removal services as subcontractors to handle tasks such as lawn maintenance, property security (boarding doors/windows), property inspection, trash removal/ debris, winterizing and winterizing jobs, repairs, lockout changes, home maintenance, painting, carpet removal, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, tree removal, and many similar property maintenance and upkeep tasks .

Services were often performed at vacant homes, many of which mortgagees had backed out after receiving foreclosure letters from their mortgage companies.

Multiple substitution opportunities, jobs and contracts for REO service providers

Numerous contracts and work order requests poured in, and many small businesses had to rush to hire subcontractors to help with the spillover.

As a result, these smaller contractors made a ton of money in the property preservation and foreclosure cleanup industry at the height of the foreclosure crisis.

A changing property preservation industry

However, fast-forwarding five to seven years, it is clear that the industry has changed exponentially.

The New Junk Business, Foreclosure Cleanup Services, and the REO Property Preservation Model

In recent years, foreclosure trash removal and cleanup services have not only begun to target new key customers and customer bases, but have also added a number of new highly profitable field and mortgage services and signed necessary new policies and procedures that work specifically for his own services and businesses, regardless of who their companies may be aligned with or to whom they may provide services as suppliers and subcontractors and for whom they work, whether locally, nationally or regionally.