Brooklyn Nowhere Near Top of Foreclosure List
First the good news: when CNN put together a list recently of the zip codes around the country with the most foreclosures, New York State didn’t have a single spot in the top 300. Now the bad news: Of the four zip codes in the state that made the top 500, three of them were…
First the good news: when CNN put together a list recently of the zip codes around the country with the most foreclosures, New York State didn’t have a single spot in the top 300. Now the bad news: Of the four zip codes in the state that made the top 500, three of them were in Brooklyn: 11207 (East New York), 11208 (East New York) and 11233 (Bed Stuy and Crown Heights). It appears that East New York is by far and away the worst hit neighborhood thus far with Bed Stuy and Crown Heights suffering as well. But this isn’t anything we didn’t already know, right?
Foreclosures drift to Sun Belt from Rust Belt [Money/CNN]
Fingers a little clumsy this morning, I managed to twice mispell my own neighborhood!
It should also be noted that both Bed Stuy and Crown Heights are both very large, spread out communities that are served by several zip codes. The Bedford Corners area of BS and much of Corwn Heights North are served by 11216.The other half of Crown Heights Noth, as well as Stuyvesant Heights are served by 11233. If you look at a zip code map, 11233 is adjacent to the ENY codes mentioned above.
End result, a great deal of economic variation can exist within one zip code, so while some statistical meaning can be drawn from this, it really doesn’t mean much in terms of evaluating the merits or failures of a neighborhood.
What would have some merit is for some kind of study to be done to see what kind of homes are being forclosed on, and who owns them, ie: is it new homeowners who overextended themselves, or oldtimers who took out predatory loans, or something else altogether? This would be valuable in figuring out how to help these people, and preventing more forclosure, which in the end, helps no one.
hey my zip code tops the list! for some reason 11207 also occupies a small part of Southern Bushwick, but i’m not sure how many of the foreclosures have been in my neighborhood vs ENY proper.
so does anybody feel like adding up all the brooklyn numbers to give us a grand total?
I think the above news should be taken with a grain of salt becuase the foreclosure process in NYS is a lot more complicated and drwan out than many of these other states. it takes approximately 90 days for the foreclosure porcess in NY while only 30 days in texas. So that does not mean that homeowners in NY are not suffering but it is a much more complictaed and long-winded process for banks to foreclose in NY.
If I read the article in the Times over Memorial Day weekend correctly, we are unlikely ever to see a huge number of foreclosures in New York State because state law makes the owner of the house, NOT the mortgage holder, the actual owner of the property, and therefore it’s a longer and more expensive process to foreclose. Not that we haven’t had problems in this area circa 1990.
I’m curious then Brownstoner, would you say that you have ingrained racist tendencies? (It will help me as a reader of your blog to know where you’re coming from on this one.)
B-stoner, that you have the technical ability to remove the drivel above but don’t is a testament to you!
No, actually, the rising number of foreclosures in those areas has already been mentioned several times on this site and in many newspaper articles.
“But this isn’t anything we didn’t already know, right?”
How did you know? Did you pick up the news while driving your car to Union Market? Brownstoner, if you just came out and were honest that you’re a selfish, classist Nimby, people wouldn’t be as enraged at your subtle, apparently un-selfconscious inferiority complex. (this may be a giant projection, but at least I have the class to admit that I have racist tendencies coursing through my veins).