*Foreclosure Crisis Report*
America’s foreclosure crisis isn’t over pt.2
The national aggregate drop in foreclosures masks troubling trends in many of the communities where property values have continued to drop, pushing more families deeper underwater, according to John Powell, director of the Haas Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. He said in many American cities, especially in minority neighborhoods, the number of foreclosures and abandoned homes have severely depressed real estate values since the 2008 collapse.
“When the government was saying the crisis was over,” said Powell, “we had thousands of neighborhoods in places like Ferguson, Missouri, where a disproportionate number of homes were underwater and the government did not step in.”
According to “Underwater America,” a report published by the Haas Institute, 71 of the 100 cities with the highest rate of underwater households have a population that’s more than 40 percent African American and Latino. All told, more than 10 million Americans live in one of 395 so-called “hot spot” ZIP codes, where between 43 percent and 76 percent of homeowners are trapped in underwater mortgages and heading for foreclosure.
For community activists hoping for a sustainable long-term housing turnaround, the key challenge has been to break this cycle of depreciating real estate values, often exacerbated with higher property taxes as municipalities scramble to make up for a shrinking tax base.
“If you don’t help us with $20,000 to tear down two derelict houses on a street, you will see people walk away from $200,000 mortgages on that same street,” saidJim Rokakis, vice president with the Cleveland-based Western Reserve Land Conservancy and director of the Thriving Communities Institute. Rokakis has pioneered the creation of urban land banks to help hard-hit communitiesdemolish derelict structures and refurbish what can be saved.
In some Cleveland neighborhoods, one in five homes are abandoned compared to one in 10 across the whole city. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are 2.5 million vacant homes in the hardest-hit 25 American cities.
Late last year, Rokakis and his colleagues made a persuasive case in Washington documenting that in neighborhoods where derelict structures were removed, the rate of foreclosure declined. The argument is based on a detailed study that the Western Reserve Land Conservancy had commissioned. Both Congress and the Obama administration signed off on a $2 billion appropriation to fund the demolition of these “zombie” homes in the hardest-hit states as part of the recently enacted $1.1 trillion government spending bill.
Yet community activists say the fact that so many homes across America were permitted to fall into disrepair is proof that the federal response just hasn’t been aggressive enough to contain the damage from 2008. “I commend the Department of Justice for taking on the banking industry,” said Frank Ford, an attorney and senior policy adviser with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. “But when they had the leverage, they did not close these settlement deals in a way in which the proceeds could hit our streets fast enough.”
If you want to avoid foreclosure and/ or need advice on any real estate related issue, we invite you to reach out to us any time at 866-857-5558 or send us an email to [email protected]. Our seasoned team of Foreclosure Specialists can help in the most difficult situations to get you the mortgage assistance and debt relief you may need now or in the near future through our simple process and convenient loss mitigation services. Call now 916-399-3339, text in to our mobile customer service support line at 916-399-3339, and/ or visit us on the web at: www.AFAHelp.org Good Luck!
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