Record Foreclosures

May 8th, 2008 | Tags: Foreclosures

Foreclosures hit another record in April in Washtenaw and Livingston counties. It seems that this trend will spill over into 2009. In April about 280 houses coming from these two counties were sold at a court auction. Foreclosure notice is usually followed by auction wherein the lender disposes of the unit to realize dues unpaid for more then three months.

The county treasurer of Washtenaw County, Catherine McClary comments that ‘we are not out of the woods yet.’ She has been initiating a foreclosure prevention task force with aplomb. Many seminars have been held together with individual counseling to stem the tide of foreclosures. This has been done in cooperation with the Housing Bureau of Seniors and Michigan State University Extension office. Her prediction is that the following year of 2009 will also be bad and things will not pick up till the end of the decade of this century. In Washtenaw County 145 houses were listed for auction. It is double the figure of the previous year and a jump of 18% over March this year. In Livingston County there were 131 houses at the auction sales. It is an 87% hike from the previous year of 2007 and 9% increase from March of this year.

RealtyTrac has been detailing the rise and fall of figures. According to it there were 29,544 foreclosed units in Michigan during the first quarter of this year. It is a hike of 24% from the figures of 2007. The term foreclosure includes all the stages of the judicial process – foreclosure and auction notices as well as bank repossession. These demonic foreclosures are taking place largely because of a fall in the real estate market. The peddling of sub-prime mortgages is held responsible for this debacle. Both lenders and borrowers made a grab for it without thinking of long-term consequences. The authorities too turned a blind eye. Now that the foreclosure fire is raging nobody knows how to douse it. Various experiments are being carried on but to no effect. Foreclosure fires continue to rage. In most cases the biggest stumbling block is that the value of the houses are often less than the loan amount. This makes refinancing or short sale more difficult.

The sub-prime mortgages were initiated with the purpose of giving a chance to those who were not prime borrowers to own a house – this being the great American dream.