Since 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has sold low-value, foreclosed and vacant properties to the Cuyahoga County Land Bank for $100 a piece — an effort to stabilize neighborhoods by keeping blighted houses off the market and out of the hands of real estate flippers.

But the agency can no longer afford this arrangement and will resume selling its Cuyahoga County properties to speculators and others on the open market. HUD notified the land bank in a letter last month it would not renew the contract.