The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece that describes a new business opportunity that has great growth potential;

"The nation's housing bust and economic downfalls have greatly increased the number of homes being foreclosed and taken by banks. The bank typically hires a real estate agent to resell it, but someone has to come in and clean up after the last residents. That's led to a boom in a new type of startup business — cleaning up foreclosures, also known as "real-estate owned" or REOs…Web sites aimed at wannabe entrepreneurs — like www.explorestartups.com — frequently suggest starting up a foreclosure cleanup business as moneymaker. Entrepreneur Magazine even picked a foreclosure cleanup business called Cyprexx for its 2008 "Hot 100 Fastest Growing Businesses" list."

In the US, where over 4 million homeowners are at least a month late on their mortgages, and more than 2 million homes will be foreclosed upon in the next 13 month (according to Moody's Economy.com), the trash out biz op makes sense, but there may be a few negatives associated with the job;

"It's not as common for the occupant to stay full-term after the foreclosure, but it does happen, Drake said. In one case, his crew found the resident still inside, armed and refusing to leave. Fortunately, he said, police were able to safely resolve that situation. Companies like Drake's usually try to the "cash-for-keys strategy" first, in which a homeowner facing foreclosure is offered a small sum, usually between $1,000 and $3,000, in exchange for a clean, quick departure and handing over the keys."

With jobs in real estate sales and mortgage brokeraging disappearing, the new business model may provide gainful employment for some. The Chronicle features Linda Hall who formerly worked as a bookkeeper before starting her own trash-out company All REO Preservation in California, who said of her company, "We've been butt-kicking busy."