Foreclosure
May 20, 2008
Foreclosure of the Week: 14A Monroe Street
How's this for fishy? The house at 14A Monroe Street in Bed Stuy sells for $325,000 in July 2003 and the buyer takes out a $570,000 mortgage at the same time. Two years later, he sells it for $950,000 to a guy who finances $855,000 of the purchase. Now it's in foreclosure and the bank is left holding the bag. That's what we'd call a cash machine.
14A Monroe Street [PropertyShark] GMAP
May 8, 2008
PropShark: Brooklyn's Forc Scene Not As Awful as Queens'
Here's the bright side of Property Shark's April foreclosure report: Brooklyn is doing way better than Queens. In fact, the real story in terms of the city's foreclosure rates is coming out of Queens, which, according to Property Shark, accounted for a devastating 58 percent of all NYC's newly scheduled foreclosure auctions in April. There were 193 foreclosures scheduled in Queens last month, as opposed to 88 in April '07. By comparison, Brooklyn—the borough with the second largest number of newly scheduled foreclosures—had 55 auctions on record last month, as opposed to 43 in March '08 and 45 in April '07. Since Property Shark tracks newly scheduled auctions, it only provides a slice of the larger picture that is New York's extremely drawn-out foreclosure process. Another recent foreclosure report from Realty Trac found that there were 1,915 Brooklyn properties in foreclosure in the first three months of this year. As Crain's reported yesterday, the State Assembly just passed a bill that would place a one-year moratorium on foreclosures for borrowers with subprime loans. The bill may die at the hands of the Senate.
Latest Market Reports [Property Shark]
NY Assembly OKs Foreclosure Moratorium [Crain's]
New Report Says Brooklyn Foreclosures Up 27% [Brownstoner]
May 6, 2008
Foreclosure of the Week: 136 Underhill Avenue
This is one of the most—if not the most—valuable townhouses we've seen fall into the foreclosure hole in this market cycle. The four-story, two-family house has a lien of $990,000 on it and, depending on the condition of the interiors are in, would fetch over $1,500,000 on the open market. Kinda makes you wonder why the owner doesn't just sell it quickly at a small discount, pay off the lien and keep the difference.
136Underhill Avenue [PropertyShark ] GMAP
Photo by Christopher Bride for Property Shark
May 2, 2008
Predatory Lending and Race: An Ugly Foreclosure Formula
The Indypendent has an in-depth look at how the rash of foreclosures across the country rooted in subprime lending has hit minorities much harder than other racial/ethnic groups hardest. Here in New York, subprime loans made up 27 percent of refinances last year. People of color are more than three times as likely to hold subprime loans as non-minorities, and one in four homeowners with subprime mortgages in Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, predominantly black neighborhoods in recent decades, were in foreclosure last year, according to federal data. “If you were a profiteer looking to make money, you’re going to go into these communities with instruments that make refinancing or ownership look much more attractive,” says Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist and president of Bennett College for Women in North Carolina. “And you’re going to do that by taking advantage of a historic antipathy between the black community and banks.” The article tells the story of a black senior citizen who's owned a home in Crown Heights since 1975. He was sold a subprime mortgage re-fi in 2006 with a rate that skyrocketed after a six-week teaser period at 1 percent. The homeowner, who suffers from dementia, now faces foreclosure. The broker who sold him the ARM got a $6,675 broker’s fee and another $14,420 from IndyMac for hawking a “No Income No Asset Loan.”
Facing Foreclosure [The Indypendent]
Photo by dominic bartolini.