http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/12/real_estate/Cleveland_foreclosure_factors/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

 

Where Cleveland went wrong

It's too easy to blame the city's housing collapse on Rust-belt economics. How bad government and greed made it one of the nation's foreclosure capitals.

       

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

November 13 2007: 3:16 PM EST

 

 

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) -- As the Treasurer of Cuyahoga County in Ohio, Jim Rokakis spends a lot of his time trying to deal with Cleveland's foreclosure crisis.

 

When asked recently just how bad it is, Rokakis unfurled a six-foot by four-foot Cleveland city plot map. Each lot was covered with dots of red ink where foreclosed homes filled the plots. From a few feet away, the map looked heavily freckled, while some neighborhoods nearly melted together in crimson masses.

 

Foreclosures hit Cleveland early and hard. By the summer of 2007, it had four of the top 21 ZIP codes for foreclosure filings in the United States. According to RealtyTrac, the city's 44105 ZIP, known as the Slavic Village, was the hardest hit U.S. community with 783 filings.

 

What made Cleveland the nation's foreclosure epicenter????

 

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/12/real_estate/Cleveland_foreclosure_factors/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

 

""One guy came in wanting Wiseman's help to save 12 separate properties," many of which he bought on speculation, entirely on credit with none of his own cash invested."

 

:roll: Thanks to idiots like this, we're all getting dragged down. Folks, if you don't *think* you could afford it without absurd incentives, don't buy it. Was I the only one raised with the idea of "living within your means"?

""One guy came in wanting Wiseman's help to save 12 separate properties," many of which he bought on speculation, entirely on credit with none of his own cash invested."

 

:roll: Thanks to idiots like this, we're all getting dragged down. Folks, if you don't *think* you could afford it without absurd incentives, don't buy it. Was I the only one raised with the idea of "living within your means"?

 

"We'd see Escalades, Range Rovers, Cadillacs out in the parking lots" he said.

 

 

Ditto.  People are foreclosing on their homes but driving $50,000+ cars!

God damned Taft &the Republicans went wrong!  It wasn't "Cleveland" that went wrong!

 

 

The state legislature was dominated by banking interests."

 

Cleveland tried to enact local anti-predatory lending ordinances in 2002, but national lenders then abandoned the market, according to Mark Wiseman, who heads the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program, which is part of the county treasurer's office.

 

One bank representative, speaking under condition of anonymity, said the ordinances would have put local lending criteria well above and beyond the national standards. The lenders wanted no part of that.

 

Wiseman said banking lobbyists got the state legislature to nullify the local ordinances. Until this year, Ohio was one of only two states that did not include mortgage borrowers in their consumer protection statutes. And when the state passed anti-predatory lending laws in 2006, the punitive damages part of the law was gutted during the lame duck legislative session at the end the year.

That was the very same republican lame duck session that forced through all kinds of bills that no legislator who had to stand for election would support.  Republicans claim to stand for "home rule" and "local control" only to the point where their lobbyist/funders conflict with home rule.

 

Spare the anecdotes about three people buying luxury cars. 

 

Attorney General Marc Dann has a more credible angle on this.  The lending industry used their Wall Street saavy to game the system to rip off the homeowners and the bond market who bought the loans.

Rokakis told of a 78-year-old Cleveland woman recently saddled with an unaffordable, 30-year ARM arranged by her minister, a mortgage broker. "I asked him why," said Rokakis, "you would give an elderly woman an ARM. He said, 'She wanted the house.'"

 

There is probably a special place in hell for people like this minister/mortgage broker

Spare the anecdotes about three people buying luxury cars. 

 

I couldn't agree more. This reminds me of Reagan's "myth of the welfare queen", where he successfully used isolated anectdotes of a welfare mother driving around a luxury Cadillac to turn public opinion against those receiving welfare, the underpinnings of very dramatic reform from Reagan through Clinton.

 

For every speculator controlling 12 properties or driving a luxury car, I bet you have 20 senior citizens who were sold ballooning home equity lines, reverse mortgages, etc. Without a doubt, some of the blame rests on the lack of responsible borrowing by buyers, but I think there's plenty of blame to go around beyond the greed or ignorance of these isolated anectdotes ... and I'd start by looking at government officials and lending institutions.

 

God damned Taft &the Republicans went wrong!  It wasn't "Cleveland" that went wrong!

 

Again, I absolutely agree, but this does beg the question ... if the blame rests primarily on state government, why has the foreclosure crisis been so much more pronounced in Cleveland than in other areas in the state? Is it simply a by-product of our decline in manufacturing jobs and declining population, coupled with this state policy? Was Cleveland specifically targeted by the banking industry in ways that other Ohio cities were not? Was our housing market more volatile than in other Ohio cities? Or were there additional mistakes made at a municipal level that compounded inaction at the state level?

Spare the anecdotes about three people buying luxury cars. 

I couldn't agree more. This reminds me of Reagan's "myth of the welfare queen", ...

We have a 21st century racist meme, to follow Reagan's 20th century racist message, brought to you by CNN.  The network that hired Glen Beck and gave him two hours in prime time.

 

... but this does beg the question ... if the blame rests primarily on state government, why has the foreclosure crisis been so much more pronounced in Cleveland than in other areas in the state? ...

You have to understand, I don't do "reporting", I do "analysis".  And that is tonight's Word.

 

note: we have two threads going! http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3936.msg235729#msg235729

Thanks for posting this article.  NBC's broadcast yesterday from Cleveland also focused on the massive amount of foreclosures in Slavic Village. 

 

I echo the above comments about "adventures in real estate speculation".  I also agree that the State Legislature bears much of the blame for the special foreclosure mess in Ohio. 

 

BTW - some neighborhoods in Columbus had been hit hard too, but probably not to Cleveland's degree.

Again, I absolutely agree, but this does beg the question ... if the blame rests primarily on state government, why has the foreclosure crisis been so much more pronounced in Cleveland than in other areas in the state?

 

Again this is a nationwide problem. There are about 13 other non-Ohio cities that are worse off than Cleveland. It’s a combination of several factors; people trying to live above their means (like Mayday said) and the predatory lenders that took advantage of them.

 

I'm sure the state shares some of the blame but wouldn't this just be primarily an Ohio problem if this were true? I would start with the Federal Government if we're looking for someone to blame.

Spare the anecdotes about three people buying luxury cars. 

 

I couldn't agree more. This reminds me of Reagan's "myth of the welfare queen", where he successfully used isolated anectdotes of a welfare mother driving around a luxury Cadillac to turn public opinion against those receiving welfare, the underpinnings of very dramatic reform from Reagan through Clinton.

 

Uh, yeah, but...can you answer the simple question most people have: why is it all right for someone on welfare to be able to afford a luxury Cadillac?

He didn't say it was okay. He gave an example where someone used an isolated instance to stereotype someone to sway the public's opinion on a particular subject.

Cleveland was the spot for the perfect storm to form. It's where all the above-mentioned ingredients came together to perhaps the most harmful effect. But if you're all looking for a nice simple scapegoat that can be uttered in a quick sound byte or fit neatly into your predetermined target of disdain, you'll be doing the problem's victims and the solutions to the problem a great disservice.

Uh, yeah, but...can you answer the simple question most people have: why is it all right for someone on welfare to be able to afford a luxury Cadillac?

As a campaigner, candidate Reagan "invented" this "welfare queen" who was living off the public dole.  In all of his citations of the "welfare queen", Reagan never cited one individual or one specific case.  It was all a carefully crafted message to raise the ire of white men to make them feel like they were always being taken advantage of.  This was to motivate people to vote Republican who would have otherwise have voted Democratic, or not voted at all.  It is also a racist message.  Put it all together: Welfare-Queen-Cadillac.

 

Fast forward to the 21st century.  None of these homeowners facing foreclosure are on welfare  (one has to have a job  to get a mortgage).  Apparently, at least three of the homeowners refinanced their homes and "cashed out" enough equity to buy luxury automobiles.  These homeowners were sold  adjustable rate mortages with ridiculously high indexing.  The consumers did not know what they were buying.  They probably had some expectation that there were consumer protection laws to prevent such things.  Go up thread to see how Taft and the Republican legislature sold them out.

I agree with your first paragraph, but actually believe it or not, you did not have to have a job to get a mortgage.  There were NINJA loans.  NINJA stands for No (verified) Income No (verified) Job or (verified) Assets.  IIRC Countrywide made a lot of these loans but they were not the only ones. 

 

This whole thing reminds me of a paramid scheme.

Re: Welfare-Queen-Cadillac

 

See Krugman's Nov 11th blog.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

NINJA's are also referred to as No Doc Loans. They are big business here in Florida. Name, Address, and SS Number, and you're all set.

NINJA's are also referred to as No Doc Loans. They are big business here in Florida. Name, Address, and SS Number, and you're all set.

I stand corrected.  Thank you, and Punch, too.  So now we have people raiding their home equity to buy sweet automobiles.  I have family members who are that stupid.

I worked for Homecomings Financial for 1.5 years.  They are GMAC's subprime mortgage servicing company.  Obviously, as a servicer of subprime loans, there are a lot of foreclosures.  I was an analyst in the operations performance reporting department.  Essentially, I reported on how well the company was doing at preventing loss, keeping delinquency low, etc.  In case you were wondering, the WORST thing that could happen to the bank that owns your loan is you go into foreclosure and the bank takes ownership of your home.  Most mortgage companies will do anything to prevent that - waive late fees, set up repayment plans, cut your interest rate to get you caught up on payments, or even help you sell your house - sometimes for less that what you owe - just to avoid taking a hit.

 

Anyway, working in a department that's sole focus was contacting homeowners who were delinquent on their payments, you would be shocked at how many people do in fact own expensive cars, eat out 3 or 4 times a week, and essentially live way beyond their means.  Then, in an even more astonishing move, people would decide to stop paying their mortgage over not paying their credit card bill, downgrading their cable service, disconnecting internet service, or swapping out their car for something more affordable.  FYI, nobody can come to your house and take your plasma TV you bought on your credit card.  People will come take your house if you stop paying your mortgage.  You know what the most common answer was to why people would pay their credit card bill but not their mortgage?  "If I don't pay my credit card bill, it will ruin my credit".

 

Look, this obviously isn't the case with everyone - I certainly heard of more sympathetic hardships such as health related expenses getting out of control, layoffs crippling income, etc.  But don't be naive and think these people with escalades, mercedes, etc in the driveway of their foreclosed home are few and far between - they aren't.

 

At the end of the day, its easy to blame predatory lenders on the situation that's a nationwide problem, but some blame needs to be on the consumer.  Here you have someone who signs 75 documents that contractually binds them for making payments for 30 years yet they have no idea what any of what they are signing means. "You expected me to read all of that?!?!"  Uh, yes.  I bet they shopped around for months before picking out their new car, but they did basically nothing prior to making the biggest investment most people will make in their life.

"The consumers did not know what they were buying."

 

"They probably had some expectation that there were consumer protection laws to prevent such things."

 

Okay, so my parents not only seared the idea of "live within your means" into my brain but also:

- "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

- "Look out for yourself. There are some royal scumbags out there."

- "Whenever someone makes you sign a contract, read every single word before you sign it. And after that, read it again."

- "The government won't bail you out."

- "Any time you're considering making a big purchase, sleep on it. If you feel as good about it the next day, go for it. If they flinch and want you to sign right then and there, walk away from it."

 

We're not talking advanced microeconomics - just simple awareness and skepticism of anyone trying to shill something; especially if you know they'll be benefitting financially regardless of your circumstances. I'm not saying I'm immune to some scheister's scheme but quite a few of the foreclosure cases were preventable.

 

"Some blame needs to be on the consumer."

 

That's all I was trying to say. It's a given that lenders and financial institutions spend billions on covering their @sses, but it's wrong for me to suggest that consumers look out for their own interests to a reasonable extent? I've been told by some people (landlords, car sales, employers etc.) that I'm one of the few (if not only) who actually sits and reads the contract they've handed me. If there's a part I don't understand, or it looks shady, you'd better believe I ask for an explanation. If I'm not satisfied, I ask to take the contract home so I can review it - and I call some people with more savvy than me. If they get impatient, they don't need my business.

http://iamfacingforeclosure.com/article/20071113_Boyko/01.html

 

Deutsche Bank Foreclosures Tossed Out of Ohio Federal Court - "They Own Nothing!"

2007-11-12

 

by Moe Bedard and Aaron Krowne

 

Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the Eastern Ohio United States District Court, on October 31, 2007 dismissed 14 Deutsche Bank-filed foreclosures in a ruling based on lack of standing for not owning/holding the mortgage loan at the time the lawsuits were filed.

 

Judge Boyko issued an order requiring the Plaintiffs in a number of pending foreclosure cases to file a copy of the executed Assignment demonstrating Plaintiff (Deutsche Bank) was the holder and owner of the Note and Mortgage as of the date the Complaint was filed, or the court would enter a dismissal...

 

http://iamfacingforeclosure.com/blog/2007/11/12/deutsche-bank-foreclosures-tossed-out-of-ohio-federal-court-they-own-nothing/

 

The investors in the mortgage-backed securities should have read the fine print, too.

 

 

regardless of whether individuals made poor choices to not live w/in their means, the government needs to take some heat b/c we ALL suffer even those who have been playing by the rules. Mayday made a good point "my parents not only seared the idea of 'live within your means' into my brain..." so he was lucky momma and papa Mayday gave him that good advice . many people never get those messages and live on credit cards and loans. And these creditors don't mind that people consume, consume, consume either. We are a society that too easily wants to judge based on what you have. Granted I too find it curious why/how  homeowners being forclosed on have cars (next to a boat the biggest waste of money and depreciater you can have) that cost more than the house will  go for at auction outside...but anyway...where do people learn about money if you never had any or your role models set a poor example? Certainly the character selling these sub prime mortgages is not going to give them a lesson when they are signing on the line. As we see they are  now getting the economic lesson the hard way.

I guess my stance would be in the middle - I think the blame rests equally on the sub-prime opportunists, as it does on the lax government leaders who lacked the balls to provide nominal enforcement of reasonable regulation, as it does the deluded and/or gullible person who thinks they can afford far more than usual just because some shady lender says so. Maybe I'm naive, and maybe it comes from being the youngest in the family but I do think that someone can learn lessons from the mistakes and failures of others. What worries me is that the folks getting the economic lesson the hard way will 1. won't see it as a lesson, but as a setback and once/if they recover will return to the same patterns and mistakes, and/or 2. develop the idea that what they've gone through is S.O.P. for 99% of anything finance-related.

 

Believe me, my parents were never able to provide the material things that so many of my friends enjoyed but you don't have to tell me twice - I am d@mned grateful for what they could provide aka common sense, healthy skepticism, self-reliance and a work ethic. I hear what you're saying that people don't always have such role models but at some point some of it has to be *their* responsibility, even if their only motivation is "so I don't f#ck up like they did".

Senior black correspondent Larry Wilmore explains how African Americans are using subprime loans to get back at The Man.

 

The "menthol cigarettes" of loans.

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=90948&title=subprime-loans

The only people, in my mind, who are blameless are those who were quoted rates and future payment amounts based on inflated appraised values etc because of predatory lending. Scams.  People don't seem to understand in many cases that hoping you can make a payment on an ARM in a few years without any sound personal financial reasons to think so does not make for a good decision. 

 

Had a realtor on Active Rain (from Michigan no less) write a post this week about something she watched on the ABC nightly news. The report talked about how ALL of slavic village was boarded up and that people are painting murals on entire blocks of homes to make it look like it's still a viable neighborhood.  I couldn't even respond to her post. Im hoping since it's Thanksgiving week I can have a few more free minutes (please!) so I can venture over there and take some photos. I have to see for myself and it (her post) pissed me off....no matter how many foreclosures there are, people still live there and call it home! Am I nuts?

It sounds like she saw or read this article:

 

http://a.abcnews.com/WN/story?id=3846303

 

It calls Slavic Village a suburb of Cleveland, so maybe that says something about the level of research they did. :roll:

 

Need Housing Advice?

Get Help on Everything From Selling a Home to Foreclosure.

 

Nov. 9, 2007—

 

Even homeowners who are up to date on their mortgage payments are feeling the pain of the current mortgage market.

 

Slavic Village, a suburb of Cleveland, used to be a thriving, working class, multi-ethnic community. It's now the victim of what some refer to as "economic rape."

 

Yes Confit, that is the culprit lol. 

It sounds like she saw or read this article:

 

http://a.abcnews.com/WN/story?id=3846303

 

It calls Slavic Village a suburb of Cleveland, so maybe that says something about the level of research they did. :roll:

 

Need Housing Advice?

Get Help on Everything From Selling a Home to Foreclosure.

 

Nov. 9, 2007?

 

Even homeowners who are up to date on their mortgage payments are feeling the pain of the current mortgage market.

 

Slavic Village, a suburb of Cleveland, used to be a thriving, working class, multi-ethnic community. It's now the victim of what some refer to as "economic rape."

 

If you need housing advice on anything from buying a home to foreclosure, please click here.

 

This part of Cleveland may look to some like post-Katrina New Orleans -- but it's a manmade disaster area. Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis says 1,000 homes have been boarded up.

 

So how does a thriving community turn into a ghost town?

 

more at:

http://a.abcnews.com/WN/story?id=3846303

 

BrancatellU??

 

Nice error.

I also wanna know where they get their info that your home automatically goes down 7k in value if it's next to a foreclosed ppty. I sold one in the memphis road area that was fixed up a bit by the bank but sold above market value.  I hate when people think out of the wrong parts of their bodies .....it is probably true in a neighborhood with a lot of foreclosures but not everywhere! And yeah, nice error lol

Judges are right to make lenders follow the rules before foreclosing on peoples' homes -- a Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial

 

Cleveland federal judge's ruling puts lenders on notice that the rules apply to them as well as to borrowers

 

Saturday, November 17, 2007 Foreclosure fairness

 

When a federal judge in Cleveland dressed down an investment bank for bringing a foreclosure suit when it lacked the standing to do so, his message went out to all mortgage lenders and all borrowers in, or on the brink of, foreclosure.

 

Judge Christopher Boyko's Oct. 31 dismissal of a handful of foreclosure lawsuits brought by Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. turned on a point of law: The bank sued before squaring away the paperwork to prove that it owned the mortgages. As such, it couldn't legally bring the suit.

...SNIP...

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1195291992294310.xml&coll=2

I also wanna know where they get their info that your home automatically goes down 7k in value if it's next to a foreclosed ppty. I sold one in the memphis road area that was fixed up a bit by the bank but sold above market value.  I hate when people think out of the wrong parts of their bodies .....it is probably true in a neighborhood with a lot of foreclosures but not everywhere! And yeah, nice error lol

I don't think it "automatically" goes down so to speak. I am sure this is an average based on stats.

Crime scene: foreclosure

Cleveland's mortgage meltdown has sparked a crime wave in the nation's hardest hit area for troubled homeowners.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com, November 19 2007

 

CLEVELAND (CNNMoney.com) -- When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland's working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off.

 

Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study for CNNMoney, RealtyTrac calculated that properties in its ZIP code recorded more foreclosure filings in three months than anywhere else in the United States.

 

According to Jim Rokakis, Cuyahoga County Treasurer, more than 800 houses now sit vacant and moldering in the area, which was founded in the 1840s by Polish and Bohemian immigrants who worked in area steel mills and factories....

 

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?cnn=yes

uch

That is depressing!

Yet another article about Ohio being a hotbed of foreclosures.  At least they address many of the ways we are addressing the problems.

 

 

Ohio leads fight to stop foreclosures

By Ron Scherer Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor  December 12, 2007

 

Sylvia Figueroa's house is right out of a Norman Rockwell painting: the basketball rim on the garage door, an American flag flying from the front porch, looking out on the tree-lined street.

 

But she came dangerously close to losing her home to foreclosure when she fell $6,000 behind on her mortgage after her divorce. Before the bank could dispossess Ms. Figueroa and her two children, she went to the Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland, which cobbled together state and county funds that will allow her to bring her mortgage up to date. "I was surprised," she says, grinning. "I thought I was going to be denied."

 

more at:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1212/p01s04-usec.html

 

If there's a city that can get blamed for "...slowing down the entire North American economy?" what city would that be?

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080118.wcover19/BNStory/robNews/?pageRequested=1

^Wow, too funny.

i don't think it is that comical at all.  it points to a gross failure in leadership in government on both a state and local level.

^Believe me, I'm not laughing at the main content, just the silliness Redbrick pointed out.  To excerpt the whole line:

 

"How could a bunch of loans in a place like Cleveland end up slowing down the entire North American economy"

 

That's an awful lot of blame to pile on Cleveland's defaulting homeowners.

^ I'm not laughing either but c'mon, the national, even international media has anointed Cleveland the "epicenter" of this crisis. No doubt the foreclosure numbers in Cuyahoga county stand out for now, but in the end I think Cleveland will be seen as more of a bellweather than the center of it all.

 

There were an awful lot of $400,000+ starter homes built on the coasts during this run up. Plus vast swaths of cheaply constructed, vinyl sided boxes in subdivisions across this great land. Many with two incomes to qualify, 0 down, interest only loans too. When this all finally shakes out, I think Cleveland as the epicenter may just be an afterthought...

I am not the 'chicken little' type but I have to agree that our foreclosure problem is a serious issue; and while other areas with housing bubbles and 400k homes may suffer in the long run more than they are now, they also have better economies. This was sort of a perfect storm to me, with our flat economy and predatory lending and people who just wanted to buy even when they could not afford it. You really only need to read through a littany of info on Bill Callahan's blog http://www.callahansclevelanddiary.com/?p=468  to see that this is a sobering issue for us.

The other side? Housing values in all of our hard hit by foreclosure neighborhoods have dropped more than normal cyclical value adjustments in other neighborhoods.

 

So I'm not sure this is not putting us in the epicenter; it just may be true. Don't get me wrong, I hate the media exposure as much as the next person; I also don't like the misrepresentation I have seen by local news coverage. They can't even get their facts straight! But all in all, the issue is almost crisis level for sure.

I just saw this article about the forclousure crisis....this time focusing on Shaker Heights....

 

-----------------------------------------

 

US mortgage crisis creates ghost town 

Jan 27 02:31 PM US/Eastern

<url>http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=080127183107.ahcwfxrz&show_article=1</url>

 

The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed.

This is Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland and a town ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States.

 

[sNIP!]

I posted this as a response in the Housing downturn = recession? thread.

 

I had no idea that

"Shaker Heights was the perfect storm: poor folks, unemployed and a desire to get a piece of the American Dream."

 

or it was a ghost town.  I guess if things are that bad and since nobody is around to stop them, my parents can just move all their belongs down the street and right into the Halle mansion!    Actually if this were true, this is the ONE time I would commandeer and live in a home with a lawn. 

 

Where in shaker is all this happening?  Please somebody tell me.

 

The address given is actually in Cleveland across from the sanitation station.

^^Wow, that is the strangest piece of "journalism" I've ever read.  It's as if an 11th grader (or maybe Jayson Blair?) surfed around on the internet for 20 minutes and cobbled little bits from a dozen semi-related articles.  Well I guess Chagrin can be redeveloped now that no-one lives on it  :roll:

I seriously am getting sick and tired of hearing the media constantly ripping on Cleveland for this.  I've got a friend that helps people in Detroit who are losing their homes because of the housing crisis.  He has family that lives in Cleveland and visits them often, and he has told me numerous times that he feels Detroit is just as bad, maybe even worse.  I know that it's a real problem, but it is still frustrating to hear the media talking about Cleveland so much. 

^Actually, I have no problem with media stories focusing on the foreclosure problems in Cleveland, I just prefer it when they are accurate and report on actual information.  I'd be surprised if any one of the people "interviewed" in this piece even existed.  Good thing this crap wasn't picked up by websites around the world...oh wait: http://au.news.yahoo.com/080127/19/15njg.html

My peeps tell me Cleveland is getting it because it know as a city to be on the rise again trying to shed its "rust belt" image, as there a neighborhoods that are reemerging and right next to them areas with high concentrations of foreclosed homes.  

 

Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Camden, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Oakland all have a the same problem, reported in their local media.

 

Cities in S. Florida, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, DC, Boston, Denver, Houston all have mortgage problems and issues with overbuilding and a glut of Condos & new homes sitting on the market.

 

Hell, even Bergen County, Brooklyn, Queens, LI and Westchester are feeling the pinch.

^It seems like all I hear even in Milwaukee's media is about how Cleveland is so terrible.  It just ticks me off.  Like you said, MTS, there's plenty of other cities around the country that are just as bad off as we are.  It's hard for me to understand how everyone in Milwaukee "knows" that Cleveland is just so much worse than every other city in America.  You may be right about Cleveland being a city on the rise, but the reports I hear just seem to be going WAY out of their way to blow the whole thing out of proportion. 

That story is a bunch of B.S. I went and counted the number of foreclosed homes in Shaker as of right now, 36, The same as about 8 towns around the region...

 

 

Here is another example of great journalism and misrepresented facts:

 

As most of the US experiences a housing slump, the number of mortgage foreclosures in Cleveland soared to 70,000 last year from 120 in 2002.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/28/wohio128.xml

No matter how you try to paint it, it's bad. I know people don't like Cleveland being the center of this, but it's the hardest hit area, unfortunately. Deal with it. No one likes bad news.

 

The important thing to remember is that this isn't the end of the world. It'll be a difficult uphill battle, as all problems are. But Cleveland can recover from this and continue on a path of growth. I just hope that the population bleeding out of the city turns around at some point soonish. I'd love to see the population begin to climb again.

No matter how you try to paint it, it's bad. I know people don't like Cleveland being the center of this, but it's the hardest hit area, unfortunately. Deal with it. No one likes bad news.

 

Yes, it's bad, but no, it isn't the hardest-hit area.  Although 44105 (Slavic Village) has the most foreclosure filings among all zip codes in the country, the metro area is seventh in filings per total number of households.  California is being hit very, very hard (it has 5 of the top 10 metros for foreclosures, including 3 ahead of Cleveland,) as are cities like Denver and Atlanta. 

 

Also, the Cleveland metro is one of about six that are supposed to have appreciating housing stock in the next five years, and in fact, it's number one on that list.

 

Things are bad here, and it will probably take a while to recover, but don't forget that there are places (especially in CA, NV, and FL) that are just as bad, and that there's an important (and kind of scary) difference between Cleveland and the Western/Southern cities on the list- those other metros have a greater percentage of their foreclosures in the suburbs (where the wealth supposedly lives.)