Jacksonville In The Eye Of The Storm
Monday, July 23rd, 2007Jacksonville is being sucked into the whirlwind of foreclosures ranking among the top defaulters in the country. Lake Forest area with a high concentration of houses is the worst hit. The virus has infected all levels of income and localities. Jacksonville has one foreclosure per 123 households – with the highest focus on Lake Forest area. Catchy signboards offering help are sprouting like mushrooms. The phone line however does not connect directly with the owner but with mortgage brokers fishing in troubled waters, trying to rope in more clients.
Some residents are living in an island unaware of the surrounding roaring waves. Leaflets jamming their letterboxes are taken to be normal junk which all have to bear with.
Realtor Peggie Wattron acting for Lighthouse Realty informs that she has her arms full with about 90 foreclosures to deal with. Her experience is varied. There are ex-house owners who refuse to budge until the police come with assistants and literally kick them out bag and baggage. Then there are city campers who calmly break in and squat on foreclosed properties.
Wattron has often tried to contact the victims to show them the dignified escape route but they usually prefer to remain like ostriches and protest that they are unaware of the coming eviction. Even when she goes and pastes a notice on the door the evictees tend to look the other way and pretend that nothing is there to read or see. Nobody contacts Wattron by burying their heads in the sand.
The Lake Forest region is a scene of devastation with piles of trashcans and personal knick-knacks strewn in front of crumbling houses with broken doors and windows. Sometimes the frustrated ex-owners do their utmost to damage the structure before leaving by pulling out as many fixtures as possible.
In the middle of the mess lenders, investors and advocates of borrowers throw mud at each other. The large number of defaults has had a snowballing effect on Wall Street and forced some lenders to down the shutters.
The story started with people with dreams and low income being refused loans. Cashing in on this scenario mortgage brokers came forward with teaser loans – tempting in the beginning but turning bitter with each passing day. Details of the agreement were purposefully kept in small print.
The grave situation has caused USA Senate to regulate sub-prime lending by legislation.
