Depths of foreclosure crisis difficult to measure
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) – When Frank Verna pulls up to a battered, four-unit apartment building at lunch hour, he’s just over a mile as the seagull flies from the gated, oceanfront palaces of South Florida’s wealthiest.
“Just watch your step,” the real estate agent says, parting bushes grown across the building’s entry path. Beyond is the darkened doorway to Unit 1 — missing its door.
“I think there’s a dead animal over there,” Verna says, aiming his flashlight at brown fur in the center of a living-room floor blanketed in garbage. The stench of whatever’s in there is potent. Nobody is home.
Verna is here because he specializes in distressed properties and Florida, thrashed by the mortgage crisis, has thousands. But figuring out just how many is not simple.
Economists at CoreLogic, a California company that analyzes mortgage data, chart 1.6 million homes in shadow inventory nationwide. They count homes not listed for sale, with loans at least 90 days overdue, in foreclosure or bank-owned.
Others say the shadow is much bigger. Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities in New York says it covers from 8.3 million to 10.4 million homes. Goodman’s analysis includes homes with loans at least 60 days overdue, those that were delinquent before and are likely to default again, and thousands whose owners are making payments but may give up because they owe more than homes are worth.
Lenders have good reasons to delay. Empty homes require upkeep and claiming ownership means shouldering taxes and fines. As long as a case in still in process, loan servicers continue to collect their fees.
A recent check of records in this one county found more than 10,000 cases in which a bank secured a final judgment more than a year ago, yet there has still been no change in title, says Michael Olenick, a West Palm Beach computer programmer who tracks the system.
Then there are houses like one where Peter Gardner answers the door. Gardner, a former laser technician, bought it for $44,000 in 1995. After a car accident left him disabled, he says he tried to catch up on payments, but couldn’t meet demands to pay accumulated late fees. The lender filed foreclosure papers three years ago. Gardner, who says it’s been years since he’s made a payment, tried for a loan modification, but every three months was told to reapply. Last fall, the lender claimed his house at auction for $500.
It’s now owned by Bank of America, whose representatives still call. “They want me to live in the house, mow the lawn, keep the air conditioning on so the fungus doesn’t grow in it,” Gardner says. He tells callers he no longer owns the place, but they don’t believe him.
“Somebody went and sold my house and they’re telling me I’m not even in foreclosure,” Gardner says. “I was mad crazy with it and every time you just have to laugh. Otherwise, you’d just kill yourself inside.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/story/2012-04-01/foreclosure-crisis-florida/53929010/1 - 64k -
I won`t post it because I know people don`t like it but Peter Gardner who bought his house for $44,000 in 1995 may have had an easier time catching up on payments after his his car accident that left him disabled if he had not cash out refied to the tune of $150k.
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