Bank Foreclosurers In Youngstown 2007-08

[AllanY2525]

Elmo,

This is only my opinion - but my feeling is that if the government is
going to use our tax dollars to bail out these banks, then they should
force them to rework their bad loans (ie: loans at exhorbitant rates
that the borrower never should have qualified for in the first place)
as a condition of receiving OUR tax dollars to fix THEIR problem.

I totally agree that banks should be doing this on their own, and there
are a (pitifully few) banks that are doing this already.

And the answer to your question about foreclosures hurting the banks
as well is, YES.  It is more expensive for a bank to foreclose on a property
than it is to re-work the terns of the loan, KEEP the home owner IN the
home [and making payments, albeit at a lower interest rate/profit], etc.

I posted a message about this recently, [ LOL it was wordy and looked more
like an editorial ] , search and see if you can find it.  I am one of those who is
financially strapped because Bank Of America won't re-fi my mortage to a more
reasonable rate.

Bank of America is now one of the nation's largest banks, and they got out of
the whole "Sub-prime" lending business before the melt-down, so they are
doing just FINE and have LOTS of cash to lend home owners, the problem is
that they won't right now because of the whole financial melt-down.  They
have become paranoid, and extremely difficult to negotiate with in order to
procure a consumer loan.

Now that the government just forked over tens of billions of our tax dollars
to them, maybe they'll lighten up and start lending some money to those of
us who have excellent credit and a long record of doing business with them.

I saw an article online the other night that said Bank of America bought
Merryl Lynch when their parent institution went bankrupt on Wall Street.
The president of Bank of America stated that they had been eyeing Merryl
Lynch for a long time and really wanted to acquire them.

:/

[Elmo-Ytown]

Why does Congress have to stick its nose in it? Shouldn't the banks be doing this on their own to help their customers? Doesn't a foreclosure hurt the bank as well as the homeowner?

[AllanY2525]

The foreclosure avalanche is truly national in scope.. in my neighborhood of
Aspen Hill, MD there are THIRTEEN foreclosed homes on a main road that
runs through the neighborhood . 

These homes line a stretch of road that is less than TWO MILES in length.
Foreclosures for my entire subdivision are in the range of several HUNDRED
and my quiet, pretty little suburban neighborhood ranks number ONE for
foreclosures in all of Montgomery County, MD.

Unlike the situation in Youngstown, however, there will be plenty of
working class families who will "scoop up" these properties when
they go on sale (also at greatly reduced prices - just as the ones
in Youngstown will) because there are decent jobs here that pay a
living wage.

The higher wages here, however, do NOT offset the fact that housing
prices here are exponentially higher than they are in Youngstown.
Even with the plummeting home prices in my neighborhood, you still
cannot buy a decent house for less than $400,000 right now.

Congress is working to come up with legislation that will allow families
who face the very real prospect of losing their homes to foreclosure
to re-negotiate the terms of their current mortgages.  Some of these
re-worked loans may have interest rates as low as 3%, for a period of
up to five years, to allow middle class families to "get back on their feet"
financially.

[northside lurker]

There are probably more that I'm unaware of, but I know of 3 houses that are in foreclosure.

In one case, the person who owned the house moved back to Boston.  They were older, didn't care about their credit anymore, and didn't want to go through the hassle of selling, so they worked with the bank to have the house foreclosed.

In another case, the person moved back to Eastern Europe.  They tried to sell their house, but I think they lost interest quickly once they were back home.  I'm told, by neighbors who know the original owners better, they have a relative who still lives in the area who wants to buy the house when it goes up for sale at the sheriff's auction. (for a greatly discounted price)

In the last case, the one I'm least familiar with, I think the owner was a failed business owner.  I think they rented the house, but couldn't make money because they paid too much for the house in the first place.

[Elmo-Ytown]

There's one in my neighborhood. I don't know where the guy went, but I hope it was to jail, because I'm pretty sure he was dealing out of that place.

[jay]

Question for city residents

Are any of these foreclosed homes in your neighborhood?  If so, where did the residents of these homes move?

[Defend Youngstown]

Many people are under the assumption that Youngstown 2010 is a nice plan that will benefit all citizens by allowing them to continue to remain the neighborhoods while we "clean up" the city. It isn't. It is a harsh-reality plan that requires cutting of losses and downsizing large sections of the city, investing in neighborhoods that can be salvaged, relocating people to more densely populated neighborhoods, and focusing limited resource in those areas/neighborhoods.

This is a very difficult conversation to have with Mrs. Jones who has lived on the Sharon Line her entire life, did everything right, and just wants abandoned houses on her street to be brought down and basic services to be administered (ex. snow plowing, bus service, police patrolling). The reality is that Mrs. Jones' neighborhood is not and cannot be provided this from a resource standpoint. Mrs. Jones is going to be given finical and transitional assistance to relocate to a more densely populated neighborhood. The neighborhood she lives in will be phased out in 10 years from now. Continuing to invest in it is a waste of resource that could be being more adequately utilized in salvageable neighborhoods. This is reality of the Youngstown 2010 plan. It isn't fair and it may sound elitist but it's not about being fair. It's about the survival of a city by making strategic choices in select areas that can be developed given the realities of our landscape and the limited economic resources we have at our disposal.

To that end, good neighborhoods are and will continue to be subject to the foreclosure crisis (ex. Brownlee Woods's area). Simply review the graphics. There are over 300 foreclosed homes in the 7th Ward alone. If limited recourses aren't going into these fairly stable neighborhoods now to preserve them and strategic demolition priority lists are not being established/followed allowing for the scatter shot approach to continue to dominate (created by parochial ward politics), expect these neighborhoods to crumble as well. In time, we will virtually have no model neighborhoods outside of the central district in which to build from or look to.

The destruction of a neighborhood happens very, very quickly. It is not unlike cancer. One or two bad houses on a street go into foreclosure or are abandoned. These houses deteriorate and/or are stripped. This leads to blight which leads to a feeling of neglect, driving down housing prices on that street...then the neighborhood. More abandonment...lower house values which scum lords buy up...more good people move out and tax base is further diminished. Before you know it, neighborhood is lost. By the way, the city has to end up spending thousands, perhaps millions, to demo large swaths of that neighborhood, pulling away more resources that could be going into neighborhood restoration in other areas of the city..but isn't, allowing those neighborhoods to crumble as well.

Two things have to happen in the short term:
1.) The MVOC community organizers are going to be working hard to organize citizens to lobby for more state HUD funding ($2.7 million is an absolute insult given Youngstown foreclosure and sub-prime lending rates). $16 million is what we need, top to bottom. Citizens need to become educated and a strong, unified voice is required to make our argument. There is $116 million of discressionary dollars in Columbus that we can fight for.

2.) MVOC, the Wean Foundation, and the City will begin to work on the development of a city-wide Community Development Corp. which will begin to acquire vacated property (instead of scum lords, absentee landlords, online sales, etc) by working w/ banks to purchase at 50% the appraisal value. They will remediate property and sale to qualified, good people looking to purchase at reasonable rates in neighborhoods that make sense to sustain/redevelop. To determine this, the CDC will work in concert with the Youngstown 2010 Planning department (which will convene again w/ the community members in 2010).

You can begin to aid in this process TOMORROW by showing up this Saturday 10am at the MVOC headquarters on Wood St. (James and Weaver building) to help by conducting neighborhood surveys of vacant properties which will be recorded and reported to city planning and the MVOC data bases. This the first step in a very critical process of becoming organized as we attempt to SERISOULY address the vacant property issue as a city.

[congo57]

I see dots but can a list be provided by name?

[jay]

The map below was among the information given to the participants at the Southeast Youngstown meeting.  Notice the large number of bank foreclosurers on the west side and southeast side of the city. 

Question
Will these foreclosed homes become the next wave of rental properties and/or vacant/stripped structures?