The Real Estate Weblog

The following is an excerpt from a Reuters News Report….Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes in this Californian suburb is perched the “tent city,” as it is called, which is basically a transit point for homeless folks. It is located in the suburbs to the east of the city of los Angeles.

There are now some two hundred individuals living here, including a number of kids, growing in size steadily due to the effects of the now infamous United States real estate mortgage crisis.

or as some analysts are calling it, mortgage fiasco.

The unhinging of this whole broad area almost seems to ech back to the Great Depression days, in terms of it’s overall look and feel, at least.

As additional families surrender their upstream struggle and head to foreclosure here and across America, the social casulaties are also piling up as a result of higher rates of homelessness and other related problems.

While none of the camp’s residents now claim to be victims of foreclosure, they all agree the place is a symptom of the broader economic downturn. And it is simply a matter of time before foreclosed families end up here, local housing experts say.

Nationally, foreclosures are at an all-time high. Filings are up nearly one hundred percent from last year, according to the data company RealtyTrac. Officials say that as many as 500,000 individuals could lose their houses as ARM loans rise over the next 2 years.

California ranks 2nd in the country overall for foreclosure filings, or 1 per 88 households in the previous quarter. Within the golden state, San Bernardino county is in the worst shape of them all, with a filing  filing for every 43 households, say the statistics.
Ouch, that is pretty bad ratio by any standards of measure.

An example of someone on the edge of this financial abyss of sirts is Maryanne Hernandez, who purchased her dream home in San Bernardino  a little over 3 years ago and now is in danger of losing it after falling some 4 months behind on her mortgage payments.
To make matters even worse, she has experienced an increase in crime since the foreclosures began. For example, her house wasburglarized, her kids’ bikes were stolen and she worries about the kind of message that empty houses can send to potential predators.

Th is particular pattern appears to be rearing it’s ugly head in localities across America, such as Acron, Ohio, Dade County, Florida and numerous others.

Health risks are also an issue. All those empty swimming pools in California have become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which may transmit the occasionally lethal West Nile virus, Riverside County officials have stated.

But it is not just homeowners who are hit by this foreclosure wave. Individuals who have rent now find themselves in a tighter, more expensive market as demand rises from families who lost homes, said Jean Beil, senior vice president for programs and services at Catholic Charities USA.

For more urbanized areas, foreclosures may trigger a range of short-term costs, such as increased law enforcement/security, inspection and code enforcement. These expenses can be substantial, said Lt. Scott Patterson with the San Bernardino Police Department, but the larger concern is that vacant properties lower home values and in the long-run, decrease tax revenues.