Macomb County in Michigan is among the top 3% of all US counties in the country in terms of the number of distressed homeowners. Towns in Macomb County such as Warren, MI have been hit hard by the real estate downturn within a state that has seen 36,399 new foreclosure filings this year and an average sale price of $141,016 which is down 38.4% over the past 12 months. No one wants to receive a notice of default that their [...]
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The City of Chandler, AZ Neighborhoods Division canceled the Home Foreclosure workshop scheduled last week due to a reported case of Swine Flu at Hartford Elementary School where the meeting was scheduled. A new date for the meeting has not yet been confirmed although classes resumed at the Chandler public school.
The purpose of the workshop is to outline qualifications and provide information on a plan to make available for purchase foreclosed, empty homes in central Chandler. The $1.4 million program [...]
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The first wave of foreclosures that hit Chicago in 2008 could be attributed to questionable lending practices that have impacted the entire country. In fact, in 2008 alone, more than 20,000 homeowners in the Chicago city limits lost their homes to foreclosure. This could have been predicted because almost 75 percent of those homeowners had purchased their home by securing an Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) or other high-risk loan products to finance their purchase.
But as we roll into the second [...]
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Helping Hands
Everyone knows that Stockton is ground zero in the foreclosure crisis that has swept the nation. The media has painted a grim picture of the northern California real estate market encompassing the cities of Stockton, Sacramento and Modesto, among others. In Stockton home building in the Central Valley skyrocketed in 2000 and home prices doubled in nearly 4 years, fuelled in large part by Bay Area commuters and investors looking for cheaper housing. But of course what goes up, [...]
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Tennessee like most other parts of the country has been swept up in the foreclosure storm. From Clarksville to Memphis and beyond, foreclosures are up 128 percent since 2006 with 449 homes facing foreclosure in Clarksville, TN currently. Nationally, more than 2 million homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings in 2008. Against this backdrop “foreclosure rescue specialists” are preying on the fear, desperation and despair of vulnerable people facing the loss of their homes.
These foreclosure scams have several elements in common. First, they [...]
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Many people are likening the devastation caused by the high foreclosure rate in Homestead, Florida to that caused by Hurricane Andrew. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew waged war on South Florida leveling everything in its destructive path. The Hurricane was a Category 5 causing 65 deaths and over $26.6 billion in damage. Today, the residents of Homestead look around them and see boarded up and abandoned houses, half-built concrete shells unfinished by developers, increasing neighborhood crime and squatters illegally inhabiting empty [...]
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According to the Seattle Times, the Washington state legislature just did something that seems pretty smart to us. They’re creating and funding a network of professionals willing to volunteer to help people in foreclosure deal with the situation. The network will include mortgage brokers, real estate professionals and lawyers and will seek to provide counseling and advice so that people can make smarter decisions.
One of the real benefits of this type of state sponsored effort, should be to curb what [...]
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Tough piece on NPR today talking about real life implications of foreclosures in Virginia. Married couple with 4 children. Mother lost her job right after telling her employers she was pregnant with their 4th. They couldn’t make up the delta in income and couldn’t meet mortgage or utilities and then lost the home. Now living in a homeless shelter.
It made me wonder - seems pretty clear these poor folks didn’t have as much margin for error as they needed [...]
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I went to college in Vermont and found it interesting to see that it boasts the fewest number of foreclosure filings of all states in the US. What has made it so immune?
I have absolutely no data to support this, but I do wonder whether it in some way ties to the cultural feel of the state. Beautiful, rural and somewhat insular is how I remember Vermont - and perhaps those elements helped keep some of the real estate development [...]
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The state of Texas saw a decrease of over 47,000 jobs in March 2009, which was slightly lower than the approx 52,000 which were lost in the month prior. While the current rate of unemployment in the state is lower than the nation’s (6.7% vs 8.5%), these numbers are higher than 2008 and indicate the possibility of an uptick in residential foreclosures in the state over the next several months.
A quick search on Roost turned up 4,757 homes in [...]
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