Foreclosures Relentlessly Steam Rolls Ahead

Posted in Foreclosed Homes, Foreclosure, Foreclosure Homes, Foreclosure Listings, Judicial Foreclosure, July 31st, 2007 |

In Carpentersville the Parrish family realized their house dreams with just the right touch in everything from the kitchen to the swimming pool. But soon the milk curdled. The man got ill. The woman lost her job. They both lost the house with memories and mementos unable to meet monthly mortgage payments. The foreclosure cancer closed in.

The Parrishes were only one in thousands in the Chicago region and across the country caught in the tentacles of the deadly foreclosure. In Elgin and South Elgin the first half saw a 32% hike since last year. It was the same elsewhere.

The blame is put not merely on unrealistic borrowers but on the general economic slowdown and changes in the lending sector. It is a raging storm. There has been a sharp shift from the traditional 30-year mortgage schemes to others with teasers like interest-only and the like. This has led to chaotic foreclosures.

Borrowers walked into it without giving a second thought to the rise in rate hake after a year or two. Many like the Parrishes complain that they were smart talked into the scheme. It was not just the borrowers but the lenders too faced a crisis. These new loans gave no importance to the equity issue. Without equity there is nothing to lose in a foreclosure. The way is open to bankruptcy. Stay put until the house is forcibly taken away.

The bitter pill for curing this ailment is to pay off the loan by selling the property and move into affordable rented quarters without the hanging sword of debts. But with hectic development work going on all around it gets difficult to sell the house. With stiff competition prices are bound to fall. The headache is not only for the borrower but for real estate agents as well where auctioneers find themselves unable to off load the weight at the end of the session. In fact the house of the Parrishes remains unsold even after a knocking off blow to the asking price.

The foreclosure numbers of 2007 will put to shame those of 2006! The faint ray of hope is that perhaps the crisis has reached its peak. This means that it couldn’t get much worse in some localities. The experience has been a shock to the Parrishes now living in rented accommodation where they continue to dream.

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