Does anyone else find it amazing that in a real estate market that has seen an incredible rise, that 87,582 American households are in the process of getting foreclosed on today, and that the number is growing rapidly in certain markets?
If 87,582 are losing their houses in an up market, how many will go down in a down market?
Answer: Millions.
Why? Bogus appraisals + Fishy Loans
Who? The least financially savvy among us
Where? Indianapolis, Atlanta, Denver, Vegas, Middle America
Turns out, plenty of homeowners are suffering despite the recent boom in house prices.
According to Foreclosure.com, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based data service that tracks delinquent mortgage holders, at the end of April there were 87,582 American homes in some phase of foreclosure. Though nationally the number is up just 2.6% from six months ago, in a few cities, foreclosure filings have jumped up by 26% and more.
On average nationally, there are 29 houses in foreclosure for every 100,000 U.S. residents. But at the top of Foreclosure.com's list, in hard-up cities like Cleveland and Detroit, the rate is several times that. Even some higher-growth cities, including Dallas, Houston and Oakland, are seeing high rates of foreclosures. And rapid growth in new foreclosure filings threaten to put other high-growth cities like Las Vegas, Sacramento and San Diego into the above-average camp.
June 01, 2006
87,582 of your countrymen and women are in the process today of losing their homes
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14 comments:
Keith,
That second link titled "The least financially savvy among us" is busted.
It has an extra http// (sic) in it.
S
fixed - thanks!
from the palm beach post sunday,
"The situation is creating sleepless nights for investors, such as Dena Webster of Wellington, who hasn't been able to sell any of the 14 houses that she purchased at the peak of the boom. Eleven are in Olympia, a Wellington development where houses routinely carry price tags of more than a million dollars, but where rents are in the $1,800 to $3,000 range.
"I'm upside-down on every one of them," Webster said of her properties.
To help make her monthly mortgage payments, which total $50,000, Webster has renters in four of her houses and is advertising for tenants for two more. Still, she's taking large losses every month.
"I'm not sleeping," she sighed."
Actually 87,582 houses are being lost. Probably 2 to 3 times that number of people are losing their homes.
If 87,582 are losing their houses in an up market, how many will go down in a down market?
Answer: Millions.
In my opinion the fact that there is going to be a large increase in the rates of foreclosures has less to do with a downturn in the real estate market and more to do with bad investing choices, bad lending/borrowing choices, rising interest rates and the future "more-likely-than-not" recession of the economy. The part that a downturn in the real estate market is going to play is that people cannot count on the appreciation that they thought would be there. So it's more just speculation and bad decisions that have gotten so many people into this mess and raised things to unsustainable heights. The downturn in the real estate market just slams the door on their exit strategy. So the real estate market is indirectly related but not the source. Just thought I would clarify.
I think forecloseure.com is behind on its figures (including those for owed property taxex). Look at the dates posted.
In some places, the numbers posted haven't changed for many months.
the total abandonment of good lending practices has played a large part in this disaster.fraudulent appraisals have an effect all out of proportion to their numbers by inflating comps and encouraging a feeding frenzy among the guppies.( a guppy will swallow anything you put in front of it)i live outside of sebastopol ca,a well to do area,and the # of homes with tax liens and in preforeclosure has exploded.the first large wave of mortgage resets starts this month!!! i expect more than half of those homes sold in sonoma county from 03 to 06 to be lost,bk,short sale,foreclosure.
Real estate wrangle snares homeowners
Creditors: Dwek owes $298.1M
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/1/06
BY JAMES W. PRADO ROBERTS
STAFF WRITER
FREEHOLD — Eleven banks along with 42 businesses, partners, investors and others say Solomon Dwek's real estate empire owes them $298.1 million.
The 53 claimants range from a lawn care company seeking $5,949 to Dwek's uncle, Joseph Dwek, who says he is owed $60 million, according to a Superior Court accounting released Wednesday.
At the head of the list is PNC Bank, which filed a lawsuit May 3 that led to a flood of claims against Dwek, 33, of Ocean Township. The bank is seeking $21 million.
The 11 banks and a mortgage company claim $149.6 million in debt, while others say they're owed $148.5 million.
Donald M. Lomurro, the court-appointed fiscal agent examining Dwek's assets, emphasized that the court's list is preliminary.
None of the claims has been verified by Superior Court Judge Alexander D. Lehrer, who presides over the case. Also, the list is not final; others may still submit claims, Lomurro said.
"It appears that a lot of these claims are wire transfers, or based on past dealings with Solomon," Lomurro said of the non-bank claims. "They are not documented in a traditional legal sense. They could be something written on a piece of paper."
The topmost claim of $60 million from Joseph Dwek, 54, of Brooklyn is followed by Amboy National Bank, which claims $51.7 million.
Except for Amboy National, all of the bank lenders claim to be fully secured by property or other assets, Lomurro said. Part of Amboy's loans are not secured, he said. The bank's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Assets valued at $300M
Last week, Lomurro released a list of more than 350 properties owned by Solomon Dwek, his wife Pearl, or companies he has an interest in. Robert A. Weir Jr., Dwek's attorney, has said his clients' properties are worth an estimated $300 million.
The first public inkling of Dwek's fiscal problems came when PNC Bank accused Dwek of fraud, charging he deposited a bad $25.2 million check in April. The bank said it lost more than $20 million from the transaction.
On May 11, the FBI charged Dwek with attempted bank fraud. He remains free on a $10 million bond.
Lehrer froze Dwek's assets following PNC's initial claim but allowed most of his income properties to resume normal business last week.
Still frozen are 129 properties claimed by Joseph Dwek. The uncle maintains that he gave his nephew $60.2 million to invest in properties since 2003, but didn't know until April that none was in his name.
Other claimants include former business partner Isaac Franco of Brooklyn, who says he is owed $30.2 million. In court papers, Franco said he gave Dwek $23.6 million that went toward properties that Dwek either never bought or already owned. Another $20 million that Franco and Dwek had borrowed was misspent, according to Franco.
"Attention Dena Webster, Attention. You are stupid, you got what was coming to you, I am sleeping like a baby at night, you are a loser, your greedy azz is getting raped nightly. I laugh at your financial pain and disaster. Hope it gets worse."
You know, that's a petty, nasty attitude that I see from some posters here, and there is no reason for it. Do you also laugh when people buy stocks that were going up for a long time, and then the stocks crash? We should all be angry at the lenders who lent way more money to this woman than they should have - just like we should be angry at the drug dealers more than the drug addicts. A lot of people who are going to suffer severe financial disaster wouldn't be in this position if greedy credit and mortgage companies hadn't let them borrow far more money then they should have been qualified for.
But the ones who are going to suffer are the people who lose their homes and go bankrupt, not the owners of the mortgage companies. And all those mortgage sales agents will just go find another job when the massive layoffs come.
-Florida Girl
""The situation is creating sleepless nights for investors, such as Dena Webster of Wellington, who hasn't been able to sell any of the 14 houses that she purchased at the peak of the boom."
Sorry about that Ms EF. No sympathy here. You got greedy, gambled, and lost. You are what is called a bagholder. If you had been a buyer 3 years earlier and sold at the peak, would you have then looked up the bagholders and helped them out of their mess? I doubt it.
The thing that has bugged me for years during the big RE buildup is just how undesirable these subdivisions are. I grew up in So Cal and lived in subdivions, but these had lots, the houses were not all the same, and there was room to play in the surrounding hills. These cracker box subdivisions that have infested the So Cal landscape look awful to me. Why did people buy them? I thought that location was the key to RE value. Is a small lot in one of these cookie cutter subs a desirable location? One worth over $1/2M or more?
When reality sets in things will get pretty bad. How do you feel safe, much less content crammed into those stucco cells?
"Monopolizing"
Dena Webster and millions more like her could have bought all the inventory and then sold for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 times the money.
If they would have been successful they would have cornered the market and we all would be paying 5 times as much for a house. let them rot in hell!!
>> You know, that's a petty, nasty attitude that I see from some posters here, and there is no reason for it.<<
Actually, there's every reason in the world for it. Nobody needs to own 14 houses. I mean *nobody*. These are the clowns that are jacking up the prices for everyone else.
$50K in mortgages every month - too funny. And this greedy oinker was probably planning on being a millionaire about this time.
Cry a river for the flippers.
Of course she doesn't NEED to own 14 houses - she did it because she thought it would be a good investment. Like people buy stocks because they think it will be a good investment. When house prices are shooting up year after year, I can see how people would think it makes perfect sense to buy as many houses as they can and then sell them them to make money off of it. It's like any other business investment.
I've ended up moving several times over the past five years, for a better job and then a better climate, and every time I've sold my house, I've been lucky enough to sell it for substantially more than I paid for it. Was that wrong of me? Should I have refused the extra money just because it would make the comps go up and everyone else's house in the neighborhood worth more money?
I know the end of the housing boom was inevitable, I know that any boom is going to have winners and losers - I'm just saddened to see vicious delight in the suffering of average people who were trying to make money and will probably lose everything.
-Florida Girl
Dena Webster has 14 properties because she doesn't pick up her phone. If you want to see one of her 14 homes start calling at least a week or two in advance..........
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