Middle Class Foreclosures
Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Foreclosures |
It is said that only those people face foreclosure that are not able to manage their budget. Actually, that is not true. We can provide an example. The Americans Doris and Mike Taylor have never assumed any risk, they have never borrowed more money than they have been able to pay back and they have never been late with the payment of their rate for a property in Cleveland suburbs.
However, the collapse of the foreclosures market has affected them as well, according to International Harold Tribune. During the last 18 months, Doris and Mike have witnessed how the properties in Gardenview Drive, their street, have been evacuated and put on sale by banks. Even though the houses still look better than the houses in the center of the town, Doris and Mike, think that Maple Heights, the neighborhood where they live is not safe anymore, therefore it is not the ideal place to bring up their children.
In this case, they have decided to sell their property. In more than six weeks since they put it on sale, they have not received any offer. They have decreased the price from 109,000 dollars to 99,000 but nobody has been interested in buying it. They are panicked whenever they notice another “house for sale” sign. Many people, who used to live in that area, were not able to pay their rates. Therefore, they just left. People compete in selling their properties, which is ridiculous.
Similar scenes are more and more frequent in many towns all over the USA, as long as plenty of mortgages have been taken by people who are not able to pay their rates, as most of them do not have a stable source of income. At the beginning, the foreclosure phenomenon has affected mainly the economy of the USA, and then this problem has become a national phenomenon. Last year, approximately 1.2 foreclosures were recorded, which represents an increase with over 42% reported to the previous year, according to a survey conducted by Realty Trac.
In the current rhythm, Realty Trac estimates that the number of foreclosures caused by the impossibility of homeowners to pay their rates will reach at the end of the year 2 million. Analysts think that this problem will extend in the years to come. It has already started to affect middle class communities like Maple Heights where approximately 10% of the houses, which means 910 homeowners have been foreclosed by banks in less than two years.
The state, which has been the most seriously affected by the foreclosure crisis in the USA, is Ohio, according to a survey conducted by the association of mortgage bankers. In Cuyahoga district, that includes Cleveland, and its suburbs as well, over 30% of the number of people who have taken mortgages are to be foreclosed or cannot pay their debts according to Jim Rokakis, the finance minister of the county. If so many houses are not inhabited, money collected from taxes practically does not exist, according to Michael Slocum, financial manager in Maple Heights.
ally does not exist, according to Michael Slocum, financial manager in Maple Heights.
Search Images: Cleveland, Foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, Lenders, loan, Mortgages, Ohio, real estate, sub-prime
Comments
Leave a Reply