The Housing Bubble

The Herald reports from Indiana. “In 2005, Madison County had 957 houses go through the sheriff’s sales. The number of sales started going up dramatically after 1995, when the county sold 46 houses all year, said Abby Ramsey, court administrator for the sheriff’s department. The rates started doubling in 1998, she said. In 2006, the Madison County Sheriff’s Civil Department sold 1,082 homes through sheriff sales.”

“This is not a problem only in Madison County. It’s happening all over the country. The Web site CNNMoney.com issued a list of the top 500 foreclosure ZIP codes, and on that list Ohio had 49 ZIP codes, Michigan had 34, Illinois had 25 and Indiana had 16. The places in Indiana were all in Indianapolis except for two, one in Fort Wayne and one in South Bend.”

The Daily Press & Argus from Michigan. “The dramatic drop in new housing construction continued during the first half of 2007, according to statistics from the Livingston County Building Department.”

“Just 111 permits were issued in the county through June this year, compared to 290 in the same period last year. ‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Kyle Sober, president of the Home Builders Association of Livingston County. ‘(Economists) had said last year that we haven’t hit bottom yet.’”

“Sober said the whole picture may even be worse, since other business sectors are also affected by housing. ‘It affects the banking industry, the insurance industry — I think everything’s affected,’ she said. ‘It’s a real domino effect.’ She said subcontractors have been hit hard, as well.”

“Sober said she thinks the housing sector is due for an upswing, although it may not be as quick in coming as many would like.”

“‘It seems to be picking up a little in real estate (sales of existing homes), and I’m hoping by fall it will pick up even more,’ she said. ‘There are a lot of lookers who want to buy new houses, but they have the problem of selling their existing house.’”

“Does she think Livingston County will ever return to the boom times? ‘Yeah, I do,’ she said. ‘We just have to stay positive and know it’s going to turn around.’”

The Detroit News from Michigan. “Southfield has more than 900 vacant properties, up from 673 in August 2006, according to a report by the Neighborhood Services Committee, which has been studying neighborhoods for 18 months.”

“Like many Metro Detroit communities, Southfield faces an aging housing stock, escalating foreclosures, an increase in rental homes because of the depressed housing market and vacant homes.”

The Wisconsin Radio Network. “In just the first half of this year, over 7,600 Wisconsin homes went into foreclosure. Erick Skrum, with the Wisconsin Bankers Association, says home buyers shouldn’t be scared. They just need to understand what they’re getting into ahead of time.”

“Skrum says many buyers are in trouble now because they over-estimated what they could afford.”

The Plain Dealer from Ohio. “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.’”

“Cuyahoga County’s housing market has been poisoned by a mix of national and local trends, experts say. The brew includes lax lending standards and lost jobs. The region’s slow growth in property values also has left homeowners without equity for a safety net.”

“Other factors include real estate fraud, unscrupulous lenders and high-interest, or subprime, loans, designed for people with poor credit. Nearly 12 percent of Ohio’s subprime mortgages were in foreclosure in the first quarter of the year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.”

“Nationwide, foreclosures should ease by early next year as credit tightens, Steven O’Connor, a VP with the Mortgage Bankers Association, told a group at the Fed forum.”

“Lenders will make deals to cut their losses, said Jim Sassano, a lawyer with a Beachwood firm that specializes in foreclosure. Sassano said clients are approving repayment plans and ’short sales,’ in which property is sold for less than the amount owed.”

“A report from Case Western Reserve University showed that as of Feb. 28, lenders owned 9,175 residential properties in Cuyahoga County, about 2 percent of the total. They owned 8 percent of the residential properties in East Cleveland and more than 6 percent in parts of Cleveland.”

“Cleveland Housing Judge Raymond Pianka is frustrated when out-of-state lenders fail to send representatives to hearings on code violations. He plans to hold trials in absentia.”

“The empty houses in turn have hurt property values. Tens of thousands of homeowners in Cuyahoga County have sought lower appraisals, and many of them won, by citing the presence of vacant houses in their neighborhoods.”

“Things have gotten so bad that the county treasurer has publicly challenged the widely held belief that having more homeowners leads to a healthier community.”

“‘Not everyone can be a homeowner,’ he told the HUD gathering last week. ‘We should stop putting people in loans they can’t afford.’”