The program is a result of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which aims to encourage redevelopment of neighborhoods hit hardest by foreclosure and the resale of properties to home owners.

Bank of America will notify participating cities that properties are available before they are listed on multiple listing services. The company will set the prices with no haggling allowed. If it all works according to plan, the result may be that cities have an easier time buying foreclosures, redeveloping them and then reselling them to homeowners in neighborhoods hardest hit by the housing crisis. Also, communities will be able to buy multiple properties in a single transaction and Bank of America will designate one employee as the "point person" for a community, in an effort to streamline the process.

"We're balancing our desire to work with communities that are struggling to stabilize with our fiduciary duty to the investors that hold the paper on all these properties," says Rob Grossman, senior vice president of community affairs for Bank of America. "We will offer them the best price."

How do you view the actions of Bank of America giving cities, not private buyers, the inside skinny on new foreclosures. Is it a positive, or negative? Fair, unfair?