June 21, 200717 yr Foreclosures drift to Sun Belt from Rust Belt A new survey shows foreclosure clusters are on the move from industrial centers to coastal and southern states. By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer June 19 2007: 3:25 PM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- For sheer volume, housing foreclosures across the nation appear to be moving from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. A study for CNNMoney.com by RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosure properties, showed that 139 of California's ZIP codes fell within the top 500 for total foreclosure filings in the United States. The next highest count for any state is less than half that at 72 and is in another sun-belt state - Florida. 10 Top zip codes The places hit hardest by foreclosure. Zip City State Total filings 44105 Cleveland OH 783 30310 Atlanta GA 709 80219 Denver CO 705 48228 Detroit MI 679 95823 Sacramento CA 634 48205 Detroit MI 634 48224 Detroit MI 583 89031 N. Las Vegas NV 575 80239 Denver CO 553 48219 Detroit MI 549 The geographic shift shows up in the mix of properties listed by the auction web site RealtyBid.com, which mainly features foreclosed homes. RealtyBid spokeswoman, Daphne Shannon, said, "The Midwest has always been very solid for us, but the properties we're seeing are moving across the country - they're from California, Arizona and Nevada." ... More at: http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/18/real_estate/foreclosures_hardest_hit_zips/index.htm?postversion=2007061915
June 22, 200717 yr From the 6/22/07 Lima News: Nearly one in 10 households faced foreclosure in parts of Lima Heather Rutz | [email protected] - 06.22.2007 LIMA — Some parts of the city of Lima have a foreclosure rate approaching one in 10 households, according to a preliminary study by the Lima Allen County Regional Planning Commission. With foreclosure rates making the news nationally and locally, RPC Executive Director Thomas Mazur wanted to see exactly what was happening in Allen County. When the study is complete, the group will have data analyzed at the neighborhood level, being able to give a number of foreclosures and who owns each property, plus tracking if owners live in the homes or rent them. ... More at: http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=39855 From the 6/22/07 News-Herald: Willowick prohibits boarding up homes Residents go to council, complain about foreclosures By: Jenny May [email protected] 06/22/2007 Scattered throughout the well-kept homes that line the streets of Willowick sit several houses that make neighbors cringe. They are homes that have gone into foreclosure. And with windows and doors that are boarded up, they are difficult to ignore. Willowick city officials hope they have found a solution to the eyesores. ... More at: http://www.news-herald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18506552&BRD=1698&PAG=461&dept_id=21849&rfi=6
June 26, 200717 yr From the 6/25/07 Dispatch: Foreclosure-prevention advice Homeowners at wit's end turn to hot line Monday, June 25, 2007 3:23 AM By Barbara Carmen THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Many Ohioans who face losing their homes have a problem far more basic than having fallen behind on a few -- or a dozen -- mortgage payments. They're baffled and bewildered. Of 7,000 Ohio homeowners who dialed a foreclosure-prevention hot line in its first year, 44 percent had a fixed-rate loan and 40 percent reported having an adjustable-rate loan. ... More at: http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/local_news/stories/2007/06/25/SAVEHOME.ART_ART_06-25-07_A1_4C73ULB.html?type=rss&cat=21
July 3, 200717 yr From the 7/1/07 East Liverpool Review: County treasurer forming foreclosure task force Special to The Review LISBON — County Treasurer Nick Barborak announced that he has established a local Save Our Homes task force to address the record number of foreclosures in the county. “I find it shameful that Ohio is first in the nation in the number of home foreclosures.” Barborak said, in a news release issued Friday. “It is time for community leaders to come forward and face this problem head on.” The number of foreclosures in the county has increased from 467 in 2004 to 518 in 2005 and a record 530 last year. Ohio had the fifth-highest foreclosure rate in the country in May and the third-highest number of filings for the third consecutive month. ... More at: http://reviewonline.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=8728
July 4, 200717 yr From Business First of Columbus, 7/2/07: Flood of foreclosures washing into federal courts Business First of Columbus - June 29, 2007 by Kevin Kemper Business First The wave of foreclosures sweeping Ohio has breached the walls of the state's courts. With foreclosure lawsuits clogging dockets at Franklin County Common Pleas and other state courts, federal judges have been enlisted to help ease the crush as the fallout from Ohio's faltering housing market grows larger. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio has joined its counterpart for the northern reaches of the state in making it easier for mortgage holders to file foreclosure suits in federal court. It's a development some say is an acknowledgment that the foreclosure tsunami in Ohio has not begun to recede. ... More at: http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2007/07/02/story1.html
July 5, 200717 yr From the 7/4/07 PD: Home loan foreclosures on the rise in Cuyahoga Wednesday, July 04, 2007 Thomas Ott and Susan Vinella Plain Dealer Reporters A tide of foreclosures that has brought Cleveland national notoriety continues to surge, with no end in sight. New cases this year in Cuyahoga County could hit a record 17,000, an increase of nearly 25 percent from 2006, according to county Treasurer Jim Rokakis. And 2006 filings had jumped more than 24 percent from 2005. "Welcome to the epicenter of the mortgage meltdown in America," Rokakis said at a recent community development summit hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. "As we say here: first and worst." ... More at: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1183539103129510.xml&coll=2
July 5, 200717 yr From the 7/4/07 PD: Home loan foreclosures on the rise in Cuyahoga Wednesday, July 04, 2007 Thomas Ott and Susan Vinella Plain Dealer Reporters A tide of foreclosures that has brought Cleveland national notoriety continues to surge, with no end in sight. New cases this year in Cuyahoga County could hit a record 17,000, an increase of nearly 25 percent from 2006, according to county Treasurer Jim Rokakis. And 2006 filings had jumped more than 24 percent from 2005. More at cleveland.com http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1183539103129510.xml&coll=2
July 5, 200717 yr ALTERNATIVE TO PAYDAY VENDORS Banks pressed for loan options FDIC wants lower-interest, consumer-friendly lending Thursday, July 5, 2007 3:28 AM By Denise Trowbridge THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Federal regulators are pushing banks to offer cash-strapped Americans an alternative to high-interest payday loans. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently issued guidelines to help banks develop small loans that are significantly less expensive and have more consumer-friendly terms than payday loans. Payday loans are cash advances, usually for less than $500, that must be repaid within two weeks and carry an average annual interest rate of about 400 percent. ... More at: http://dispatch.com/dispatch/content/business/stories/2007/07/05/paydaylending.ART_ART_07-05-07_C8_TQ76UGD.html
July 7, 200717 yr The City has all of the Cleveland CDCs inventory abandoned properties on a quarterly basis, per their CDBG funding. I was out in the field this week doing research. (Without mentioning where I work), I had a small street that had some four vacant properties in March, but now has nineteen. Another street with about thirty total houses is now more than half abandoned. And when I say "abandoned," I'm generally talking the hideous-looking ones with aluminum siding stripped, dumping in driveways, etc. I received note that the City tabulated some 7,000 abandoned properties from the inventories, more than a thousand of which are located in Slavic Village. But I've heard aggressive estimates of about 13,000.
July 7, 200717 yr That's devastating. Can you tell me which streets have some of the highest number of vacancies and/or rates of vacancies? "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
July 7, 200717 yr From the 7/7/07 Dispatch: Mortgage probe expands Dann checking whether credit-rating agencies played a role in fraud Saturday, July 7, 2007 3:28 AM By James Nash THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann said yesterday that his office is investigating whether three credit-rating agencies bear any responsibility for fraud committed by high-risk mortgage lenders. Dann said he is expanding his inquiry into mortgage fraud to include credit-rating agencies Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. The rating agencies profit whenever an investment bank creates a subprime loan pool and continues to rate its securities triple-A, Dann said. The rating agencies thus became participants in fraud against investors -- such as Ohio pension systems -- that would shy away from lower-rated investments, Dann said. ... More at: http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/business/stories/2007/07/07/SUBPRIME.ART_ART_07-07-07_C10_EQ77JKT.html?type=rss&cat=7
July 12, 200717 yr Homeowners to share predatory lending settlement (Cleveland) Plain Dealer Posted by Sheryl Harris July 12, 2007 13:39PM Categories: Breaking News Homeowners will receive letters this week telling them whether they are eligible for a piece of a $325 million, multistate settlement against Ameriquest Mortgage Co. and related companies, including Town and Country Credit Corp. Last year, Ameriquest settled predatory lending charges by attorneys general in 49 states. In Ohio, 12,200 homeowners are eligible for $7 million ... ... More at http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2007/07/homeowners_to_share_predatory.html
July 13, 200717 yr From the 7/12/07 Cincinnati Business Courier: Ohio foreclosures rose in June Cincinnati Business Courier - 2:33 PM EDT Thursday, July 12, 2007 Ohio had the ninth-highest number of foreclosures in the country in June, according to The Bargain Network Monthly U.S. Foreclosures Trend Report. Ohio saw 3,725 homes enter foreclosure in June, a 1.6 percent increase from May, said the report released Thursday. "We are still hurting on the employment front and we are a target for adjustable loan rates to kick up," said Richard Stock, director of the University of Dayton's Business Research Group. ... More at: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2007/07/09/daily41.html?from_rss=1
July 16, 200717 yr From the 7/15/07 Elyria Chronicle-Telegram: Foreclosures on the rise Bette Pearce | The Chronicle-Telegram ELYRIA — Lorain County residents are losing their homes to foreclosure at an alarming rate. Civil court records show that 1,188 foreclosures were filed in the first half of this year, compared with 1,935 filed in all of 2006. In the first quarter of this year, 627 foreclosures were filed, compared with 448 in the first quarter of 2006. ... More at: http://www.chroniclet.com/2007/07/15/foreclosures-on-the-rise/
July 17, 200717 yr From the PD: Edwards calls for predatory lending law Posted by Mark Naymik July 17, 2007 13:26PM Presidential candidate John Edwards used the Cleveland leg of his "Road to One America" tour to call for a national predatory lending law. Edwards spent a half an hour walking the streets of Cleveland's Mt. Pleasant neighborhood, focusing most of his remarks on predatory lending. "This is why we need a national predatory lending law," he said as he walked down streets where the housing stock has been devastated by foreclosures ... ... More at http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2007/07/edwards_calls_for_predatory_le.html
July 31, 200717 yr Foreclosures rise 58%; Ohio ranks 3rd highest Tuesday, July 31, 2007 3:36 AM By Alex Veiga Associated Press LOS ANGELES -- The number of U.S. homes facing foreclosure surged 58 percent in the first six months of the year, the latest sign of mounting problems in the mortgage industry, a data firm said yesterday. In all, 573,397 properties across the nation reported some sort of foreclosure activity in the first half of this year, including receiving notices of default, auction-sale notices or being repossessed by lenders, Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc. said. That was 58 percent higher than the 363,672 properties in the first six months of 2006 and 32 percent higher than the 433,504 in the last six months of 2006. ... More at: http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/business/stories/2007/07/31/foreclosure_rates_0731.ART_ART_07-31-07_C7_L27EP7E.html
July 31, 200717 yr I am sure huge foreclosure numbers (that are still climbing) will not end up impacting the local economy, future homes and condo sales, the RE industry or overall prices. :wink:
August 9, 200717 yr Home lenders lifting threshold Time of easy credit for buyers ends as foreclosures mount Thursday, August 9, 2007 5:52 AM By Denise Trowbridge THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Ohioans with less-than-stellar credit might soon have trouble getting a mortgage, thanks to a pullback by banks that have been burned too many times. A number of banks with operations in central Ohio are tightening loan requirements and getting away from loans that are considered more riskier. JPMorgan Chase recently said it will reduce sales of "no-doc" loans, which are made to borrowers who don't have proof of income, as well as loans with high loan-amount to house-value ratios. The bank also eliminated adjustable-rate mortgages that reset after two or three years. ... More at: http://dispatch.com/dispatch/content/local_news/stories/2007/08/09/mortgagefallout.ART_ART_08-09-07_A1_NL7ILQS.html
August 9, 200717 yr In the next year or two I wonder if foreclosured properties will be good buys? Actually, banks have been real slow to turn these foreclosed properties around and put them on the market. The banks will take a loss on the property, but the loss is not recorded on the books until the property is sold out of foreclosure. So the banks don;t want to dump a lot of foreclosed properties on the market all at once (during the last down-turn, the Federal bank regulators had to step in and force the banks to sell their foreclosed properties.) So you will see a trickle of foreclosed properties come on the market over the next few years. This will help keep prices depressed for some time. And foreclosed properties are sold 'as is'. Of course, by then the house has sat empty for 2+ years, so any buyer will have to deal will maintenance issues, from overgrown gardens to rodent-eaten electrical wires to broken/cracked water pipes to seized up hvac systems to malfunctioning kitchen appliances, and so on and so on. (I bought a non-foreclosed property that had sat empty for 18 months [2 winters] so I know what I'm talking about.) You might get a good "price" on a foreclosed house, but you might not get a good "deal".
August 9, 200717 yr Subprime lending has been a godsend for most of its customers and the communities they live in. But folks seem shocked that high credit-risk customers sometimes can't pay their bills - that just baffles me... perhaps you'd like to move into my City of Dayton neighborhood and see what a godsend it has been.
August 14, 200717 yr California cities fill top 10 foreclosure list Stockton, Calif. records highest foreclosure rate among nation's metro areas according to a new survey. By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer August 14 2007: 11:44 AM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The binge that many housing markets went on in the early- to mid-2000s is over, and some of the hottest markets like California are now experiencing the worst hangovers. But other areas, especially many that recorded slower home price growth earlier this decade, have seen little increase in foreclosure rates, according to the latest data released Tuesday from RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosure properties. "While foreclosure activity has skyrocketed over the past year in many cities, particularly in California, Ohio and the Northeast," James Saccaccio, RealtyTrac's chief executive, said in a statement, "foreclosure activity seems to be subsiding in parts of Texas, South Carolina and other states." "Still," he said, "the overall trend is toward escalating foreclosure rates, with 82 of the top 100 metro areas reporting year-over-year increases in the number of homes affected by foreclosure." Stockton, California now leads the nation in foreclosures. Of RealtyTrac's top 10 metro areas for foreclosures, four are in Central California. ... More at: http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/14/real_estate/California_cities_lead_foreclosure/index.htm?postversion=2007081411
August 15, 200717 yr No link for article. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 23, 200717 yr I've just been notified that Strickland will be on CNN/Headline News to discuss Ohio's foreclosure issues. I wasn't given a time and I don't know if its live or recorded.
August 24, 200717 yr Cleveland's outer suburbs see jump in foreclosures Foreclosures jump outside Cleveland Friday, August 24, 2007 Thomas Ott and Michael O'MalleyPlain Dealer Reporters Cleveland's outer suburbs, once hot spots for new housing, are becoming foreclosure boom towns, a new study says. Foreclosures jumped about 17.5 percent in the suburbs on the periphery of Cuyahoga County during the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, according to a study released Thursday by Policy Matters Ohio, an economic think tank. New cases also climbed about 17 percent in inner-ring suburbs, mostly communities that border Cleveland. ... More at: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1187945738199240.xml&coll=2&thispage=1
August 26, 200717 yr Your home as a piggy bank? Not anymore Sunday, August 26, 2007 3:46 AM By David Leonhardt and Vikas Bajaj THE NEW YORK TIMES The median price of American homes -- the level at which half of all homes are more expensive and half are less -- is expected to fall this year for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950. Economists say the decline, which might start to take shape in a government price index to be reported this week, probably will be modest -- from 1 percent to 2 percent -- but could continue in 2008 and 2009. Rather than being limited to the once-booming Northeast and California, price declines also are occurring in such cities as Chicago, Minneapolis and Houston, where the increases of the last decade were modest by comparison. The reversal is striking because many government officials and housing-industry executives had said that a nationwide decline would never happen, even though prices had fallen in some coastal areas as recently as the early 1990s. ... More at: http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/08/26/Home_prices_NYT.ART_ART_08-26-07_A1_RO7N85N.html?sid=101 ************************************* Banks closing lending units Investment groups trying to escape 'subprime' mess Sunday, August 26, 2007 3:48 AM By Joe Bel Bruno ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK -- For the mortgage industry, Wall Street's big investment banks might seem like one of those friends who disappear when the going gets tough. It wasn't that long ago that the investment houses, looking for ways to cash in on the then-booming housing industry, were buying mortgage lenders at a frenetic pace. The story now is quite different. Last week, 1,200 people lost their jobs after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. closed subprime-lending unit BNC Mortgage LLC, a company it fully acquired in 2004. Similar steps are expected as investment banks try to erase any connection with loans to borrowers with weak credit. ... More at: http://dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2007/08/26/wall___main_0826.ART_ART_08-26-07_D1_IG7MUO6.html?sid=101
August 26, 200717 yr Mortgage mess hits home Sunday, August 26, 2007 Teresa Dixon Murray Plain Dealer Reporter Imagine having a house payment that’s skyrocketing by $400 a month, $800 a month. Or imagine you’re buying your first home and, at the last minute, your lender goes out of business. Or you could be hoping to sell your home, but you suddenly find out it’s worth a lot less than it used to be. These gut-wrenching scenes are playing out across Northeast Ohio as the mortgage and housing mess hits home. ... More at: http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/business-3/118811889185000.xml&coll=2
September 2, 200717 yr Can the Mortgage Crisis Swallow a Town? David Maxwell for The New York Times Maple Heights,Ohio TAMMI and Charles Eggleston never took out a risky mortgage, never borrowed more than they could afford and never missed a monthly payment on their neat, three-bedroom colonial in the Cleveland suburbs. But that hasn’t prevented them from getting caught in the undertow of the subprime mortgage mess now submerging this town. Over the last 18 months, the Egglestons have watched one house after another on their street, Gardenview Drive, end up foreclosed and vacant. Although lawns are still tidy and empty homes are not boarded up and stripped as they are in inner-city Cleveland, the Egglestons say Maple Heights no longer feels safe after dark. Nor do they have the confidence they had when they moved in a decade ago that this is the ideal place to raise their 6-year-old twin girls, Sydney and Shelby. So, in May 2006, they put their home on the market in order to move closer to Mrs. Eggleston’s parents in another middle-class Cleveland suburb, Richmond Heights. They have had no takers. Although they lowered the asking price to $99,000 from $109,000, no one has even come to look at it in more than six weeks. “My heart panics every time I drive down the street and I see another for-sale sign,” says Mrs. Eggleston, pointing past the placards in front of her porch to others that dot surrounding yards like lawn furniture. “Some people on the street couldn’t pay, so they just left. The competition to sell is just ridiculous.” ... More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/business/yourmoney/02village.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=all
September 4, 200717 yr County-city program helps prevent foreclosures September 4, 2007 | CINCINNATI BUSINESS COURIER CINCINNATI - An effort started early this year to help homeowners stave off foreclosure has made a difference, Hamilton County and the city of Cincinnati said Tuesday. In its first six months, the Hamilton County Homeowner Preservation Initiative has saved 181 homes from foreclosure, preserving up to $10 million in property value, the county said in a news release. Program counselors have received almost 3,000 requests for service so far. "This is a crisis eating away at families and communities," said Commissioner David Pepper in the release. "One home at a time, this partnership is helping prevent foreclosures across the county -- but we have much more to do." ... More at: http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2007/09/03/daily2.html
September 11, 200717 yr Banks oppose proposals Recommendations aim to prevent foreclosures BY ALEXANDER COOLIDGE | [email protected] COLUMBUS - A representative for Ohio's banks Monday blasted proposals by a task force aimed at containing the foreclosure crisis in the Buckeye State. The head of the Ohio Bankers League, Michael Van Buskirk, was the lone dissenting vote as the Ohio Foreclosure Prevention Task Force approved its final report and recommendations. Van Buskirk said he couldn't endorse the report because many of its proposals were too vague and could disrupt lending by homegrown banks. "It's a shotgun approach to something that needs precision," he said, who was harsher in his written minority report. Van Buskirk's written dissent said the task force didn't understand the nuances of mortgage lending and that "much of the work of the task force was focused on coercing lenders to rewrite existing loans." ... More at: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070911/BIZ01/709110312/1076
October 13, 200717 yr Ohio again among top states for foreclosures Business First of Columbus - October 12, 2007 Ohio ranked among the top 10 states in the country for the number of foreclosures and its foreclosure rate for September, according to a monthly report. The state had the third-highest number of foreclosures nationwide last month with 15,709, trailing California's 51,259 and Florida's 33,354, according to Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure tracking company RealtyTrac Inc. Ohio also had the seventh-highest foreclosure rate with one for every 319 households. ... More at: http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/mobile/stories/2007/10/08/daily25.html
October 18, 200717 yr I found this in a house the other day...Looked to be a little girls room... Sad...
October 20, 200717 yr Here's a study on Cleveland's foreclosure epidemic http://acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/OH_Cleveland.pdf Cincinnati: http://acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/OH_Cincinnati.pdf Columbus: http://acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/OH_Columbus.pdf Dayton: http://acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/OH_Dayton.pdf Toledo: http://acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/OH_Toledo.pdf Akron: http://acorn.org/fileadmin/Reports/OH_Akron.pdf
October 20, 200717 yr From the Dayton report, showing how the foreclosure mess is hitting the suburbs as well as the city. Note that Huber Heights has the highest surburban foreclosure number. The top five (outlined in black) are within Dayton, though. 1. Salem Ave & Cornell Ave area, including Philadelphia Drive and the Dayton View Triangle. 2. Main Street Corridor, including Riverdale and Five Oaks 3. Downtown, Webster Station, & Oregon 4. East Dayton south of US 35 (Xenia Avenue/Wyoming Avenue cooridors) 5. East Dayton north of US 35 (East Third Street) ...and the number is increasing over last year!
October 25, 200717 yr Cleveland, Cuyahoga officials consider county agency to buy vacant houses Thursday, October 25, 2007 Thomas Ott and Joe Guillen Plain Dealer Reporters Cleveland and Cuyahoga County officials want to create a countywide agency that would buy houses before they can be dumped by lenders. As envisioned, the agency would raise millions of dollars for demolition, boarding windows and cutting grass. It also could snatch homes from the clutches of speculators and give cities time to ponder redevelopment ... ... More at http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/119330572060930.xml&coll=2&thispage=1
October 25, 200717 yr "He estimates that the neighborhood has 1,000 abandoned houses, many of them forsaken after being sold in mortgage scams. Many of the houses would be better off demolished and the yards annexed by neighbors, Brancatelli said. " Ick, this is politically popular, I'm sure, but results in some ugly neighborhoods. Most of the "annexed side yards" I've seen aren't well maintained.
October 25, 200717 yr "Many of the houses would be better off demolished and the yards annexed by neighbors, Brancatelli said." Sounds like a component of Youngstown's "Shrinking City" initiative is coming to Cleveland. clevelandskyscrapers.com Cleveland Skyscrapers on Instagram
October 25, 200717 yr It's nothing new coming to Cleveland here. That was the policy for much of the 70's and 80's when nobody thought anyone would want to build a new house in Cleveland's old neighborhoods.
October 25, 200717 yr I'm glad that people are being proactive about addressing houses that are in disrepair, but I wish there was a more comprehensive strategy than to bulldoze and make bigger yards. I would love to see prioritization for bulldozing in areas of contiguous vacancies and then planning to create a relatively low-cost community asset (a simple park or a community garden, for instance). I'd also like to see some strategy about reclamation of materials for use in new construction locally (and potentially selling materials to new developments outside of the region if it could viably result in a new revenue source for local municipalities). Finally, I'd love to see some more robust strategies to market "in-between properties" (those that are not uninhabitable but that are not generally going to sell very easily on the private market) to specific niches of buyers who might be interested in an "extreme makeover" investment, particularly to individuals who are not solely dependent on employment opportunities when choosing to relocate. Paducah offers an interesting model. The central Kentucky town of about 28,000 has been marketing "in-between properties" in the Lower Town District (think block after block of Ohio City turn-of-the century houses in pretty bad states of disrepair) to artists. The town's planning department increased pressures on absentee landlords (mainly through zoning restrictions, though I don't know the specifics of these examples) and then has been marketing the incredibly affordable properties to artists and providing relocating artists with $2,500 architectural planning grants. Since the program launched about 5 years ago, 100 artists from all over the country have moved to the town, renovated the houses and created a thriving arts district (http://www.paducaharts.com/). The model has been replicated in cities elsewhere, with variable degrees of success ... notably, the originator of the program has now been hired to do the same in conjunction with a university neighborhood in Syracuse, and two Pittsburgh CDCs have launched a similar program there (http://www.pennavenuearts.org/). These types of concepts take time and resources, but they result in new property tax opportunities that offset the long-term costs and also result in something more aesthetically pleasing than huge sprawling yards in urban neighborhoods. From my vantage point, we should be closely examining what new opportunities this vacant land provides us; if the municipalities lack the funding to explore innovations like this, then the foundations should take such innovations on. And ultimately, we should be collaborating with other Rust Belt cities on best practices for shrinking city models and advocating for federal funds designated specifically for this purpose.
October 25, 200717 yr First, Cleveland and some suburbs have to fend off a new wave of investors who are buying property virtually sight unseen. Brancatelli recently came across a California man who bought a four-suite apartment building for $1, and his only glimpse of it was on a satellite image taken from the Internet. Anyone know where to buy these $1 properties? That's pretty crazy. I know land bank properties go for incredibly cheap, but I was thinking in that circumstance, even vacant lots were going for $100.
October 25, 200717 yr First, Cleveland and some suburbs have to fend off a new wave of investors who are buying property virtually sight unseen. Brancatelli recently came across a California man who bought a four-suite apartment building for $1, and his only glimpse of it was on a satellite image taken from the Internet. Anyone know where to buy these $1 properties? That's pretty crazy. I know land bank properties go for incredibly cheap, but I was thinking in that circumstance, even vacant lots were going for $100. I'll my uncle he's looking around hough and was inquiring about that program. I'll report back.
October 25, 200717 yr Let's buy an UrbanOhio club house! For $1, why the heck not? Only if its a tree house!
October 25, 200717 yr Um, of COURSE it's going to be a tree house. Sorry. I don't have anything particularly constructive to add lately.
October 29, 200717 yr From the BBC...damn. -------------------------------------------------------------- American Nightmare By Sam Benstead Producer, This World The crisis in US subprime mortgages has fallen hard on the city of Cleveland, Ohio, where as many as one in six households have been affected. Eleanor Hall is a single mother with two children and has a steady job as a market researcher. Five years ago she bought a house which she has lovingly restored. What she didn't realise was that her mortgage was a subprime - a home loan designed for people with a low income or bad credit. They cost more than ordinary mortgages to cover the risk of the banks making the loan. Now, she is unable to pay and left facing homelessness. "I'm truly at rock bottom," she says, "and I have nowhere else to go". Eleanor is not alone - over two million families are expected to lose their homes in the US within the next couple of years. THE EVICTION SHERIFFS In Cleveland the cost of clearing the human debris come eviction day falls to the Cuyahoga County Sheriff Department. "I feel like an undertaker," says Jeff, a veteran of neighbourhood policing who has seen evictions in his section jump since he joined the force from 12 a week to over 90 a week. He has to evict families, old people and even, on occasion, his own relatives. The result is a city blighted by house repossessions - with one in six households in Cleveland have faced eviction proceedings since 2000. Due to a glut of houses on the property market, house prices have crashed. Banks can no longer sell the properties on and they are left derelict and deserted. "It has ripped the heart out of our neighbourhood," says Toni Brancatelli, a lifelong Cleveland resident. He has seen gangs and squatters move in to the empty homes, fuelling crime and social decay. The majority of those defaulting on their mortgages are people living on the poverty line, tipped into defaulting on their mortgage by rising medical bills, unemployment, utility bills and one of the most contentious elements to this crisis - 'predatory lending'. THE WILD WEST OF LENDING So who is to blame - the borrower, the broker or the lender? Clearly, it is partly the system itself. US subprime lenders were not required to perform stringent checks on borrower's credit ratings. The result is "ninjas" - loans sold to people with "no income, no job and no assets". "This was the Wild West of lending but there was no sheriff in town," says Jim Rokakis, County Treasurer for the Cleveland area. He has been asking for anti-predatory lending legislation to be passed in Ohio County for years but claims that no-one would listen. Now he is incandescent with anger. "There has been blood flowing on the streets of Cleveland but nobody cared. The only time anyone listened was when blood flowed on the only street that matters in this country, and that's Wall Street". 'THE SMOKING GUN' The subprime mortgages, taken out by people in Cleveland and all over the US, have since been sold on to investors all over the world. Everyone in the system - the brokers, the lenders, the investment appraisers - took their cut and the returns were good. But, as it turns out, so were the risks. "We found the smoking gun, and everyone's fingerprints were on it," says Mark Seifert, director of ESOP, a local poverty action group. When the mortgages went bad, the securities became worthless and the money dried up on the markets. The result is a global credit crunch, which has been felt in Britain through the bank run on Northern Rock. Although the markets may yet correct themselves, for the people of Cleveland the damage has already been done. "I don't ever see myself owning a home again," says Eleanor Hall. She, like millions of other subprime mortgage borrowers in America, bought into the American dream of owning your own home, only for that dream to become a nightmare.
November 5, 200717 yr Man, BBC won't leave us alone with this housing topics--maybe it is pretty bad. Very long, but interesting: --------------------------------------------- Foreclosure wave sweeps America By Steve Schifferes BBC economics reporter, Cleveland, Ohio http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7070935.stm A wave of foreclosures and evictions is about to sweep the United States in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis. This could destabilise the US housing market and may also lead to further turmoil in financial institutions, who collectively own $1 trillion worth of sub-prime debt. Cleveland, Ohio, is an industrial city on the banks of Lake Erie in the US "rust belt". It is the sub-prime capital of the United States. One in ten homes in the city is now vacant, and whole neighbourhoods have been blighted by foreclosed, vandalized and boarded-up homes. Many of these homes are now owned by the banks and investment pools owning the mortgages, and the company making the most foreclosures in Cleveland is Deutsche Bank Trust, which acts on behalf of such investment pools. Cleveland is facing a rising crime wave, and the cost of demolishing the vacant houses alone will cost the city $100m of its tax base. According to Jim Rokakis, the County Treasurer for Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, "Wall Street strategies that made the cycle of no-money-down, no-questions-asked lending possible have sucked the life out of my city". Crisis origins But why have so many people in the US taken out sub-prime mortgages? The sub-prime lending market started as a way of lending to people with poor credit history - as long as they had collateral like a house that could be used to guarantee the loan. It was particularly prevalent in inner-city areas, especially among black and Hispanic borrowers. Many of these mortgages were sold by unscrupulous and little regulated mortgage brokers, who received handsome commissions for selling expensive and unsuitable products. Some customers were not told that their interest rates would go up sharply after two years; others were promised they could refinance their home before higher rates took effect. Others found that when they had difficulties paying, huge unexplained fees were added to their bills, putting them further in debt. "Families all over the country continue to lose homes in record numbers, stripping families of their wealth and destroying entire neighbourhoods" Michael J Calhoun Center for Responsible Lending Marion's story One person hard hit is Marion Gardner, who lives in one of the worst affected sub-prime lending areas of Cleveland, known as Slavic Village. A single parent, she had worked hard to buy a house where she could raise her two children and escape from the misery of the inner-city housing projects. Two years ago Marion fell ill, and found she could not manage the stairs in her house. She decided to refinance her home, using some of the money to buy an apartment where she could more easily manage. She gave her old house to her two sons, expecting they would contribute to paying for the property she had struggled so hard to obtain. But the sons fell behind in their payments. Marion went to her lender - Countrywide, the biggest sub-prime lender in the US - and offered to pay off all the arrears. She said they accepted her offer, and began sending them $1,000 every month, using up her retirement savings. But after six months she discovered that instead of clearing her arrears, her home was going to be foreclosed by Countrywide. She still visits the house every day, trying to protect if from drug dealers and burglars, and leaves her dog in the backyard. But she can see all along her street dozens of foreclosed properties that have been vandalised, boarded up, or gutted. Now she has learned that a date has been set for the sheriff to come and evict her. Deceptive practices? Mark Seifert, the director of the East Side Organising Project (ESOP) in Cleveland, which has played a leading role in helping people affected by the sub-prime crisis, says Marion's story is typical. He says lenders engaged in deceptive practices and clients found it difficult to get any information at all when they got into arrears. Mr Seifert says that ESOP - using protest tactics - has managed to get a few mortgage companies to sign a deal agreeing a uniform set of criteria to decide whether someone's mortgage qualifies for renegotiation rather than foreclosure. But he says they have been unable to reach such an agreement with Countrywide, the nation's largest sub-prime lender - although its boss has promised to meet them. Spreading to the suburbs The crisis has spread beyond the inner city to the suburbs of Cleveland. Last month over 200 people turned up at a church meeting to seek ESOP's help in avoiding foreclosure. Some, such as Ron Todd, who lives in a suburb just south of the city, are in danger of losing their home after being made redundant by Northwest Airlines, a big local employer. Others are worried that their neighbourhoods - and the property values of their own houses - will be ruined by the foreclosures all around them. According to Claudia Coulton, co-director of the Centre for Urban Poverty at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, over 10,000 families - one in eight of all owner occupiers in Cleveland - will face eviction this year - and the number is expected to rise. She says the crisis is threatening to "overwhelm the government agencies and community organisations that address the problem". Nationwide problem Cleveland's situation is not unique. All around the country, aid agencies report a "tidal wave" of foreclosure cases, says Sarah Gerecke, director of New York City's Neighborhood Housing Services. She now employs six people full-time to provide mortgage debt counselling, up from one just two years ago, and could use another 12. Her concern is that many recently regenerated neighbourhoods in New York will soon be blighted by crisis again. Some people argue that the sub-prime lending crisis has been caused by irresponsible borrowers who lied about their income to cash in on the housing boom. Ms Gerecke disagrees. She says few of her clients would knowingly put their home at risk. Many sub-prime borrowers report that mortgage brokers misrepresented the kind of mortgage they were being offered, their annual income, and even the value of their home. Working together? President George W Bush's administration wants to solve the foreclosure crisis by getting lenders and borrowers to renegotiate the terms of loans. It is pledging more money for advice services, and has been urging key lenders to take a more sympathetic approach. Robert Steel, the US Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, told the BBC that the government's role was "to ensure that lenders and servicers are being flexible with regard to working with borrowers". He added that no policy could eliminate foreclosures altogether because there was "a natural level of foreclosures that goes on in an economy in good times and bad... it's part of the nature of how our economy works." But according to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's, only 1% of sub-prime mortgages have been renegotiated rather than foreclosed so far. Ms Gerecke says a piecemeal approach involving millions of individual renegotiations will not work. Each case takes hours of negotiations, and the mortgage companies' loan loss departments are overwhelmed by the crisis. A way out? The only way out, says Ms Gerecke, would be national loan terms agreed for the whole industry. One such plan has been proposed by Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), one of the key banking regulators. She told the BBC that sub-prime interest rates should not be reset if the borrower has kept up all payments and is not in arrears. But such a deal is proving extremely difficult to reach, given that thousands of investors around the world own a share of these sub-prime mortgages. Meanwhile Marion still sits in her Cleveland home every day, trying to stop it being vandalised even though she knows it is merely a matter of time before she will be evicted. "I am just really working for the banks now, protecting their property from damage," she says.
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