Vacant properties – abandoned in part by a mountain of foreclosures – so far have cost Cleveland more than $35 million, says a study of eight Ohio cities to be released Tuesday.
The tally includes property tax dollars lost, as well as wages paid for workers to fight fires, mow weedy lawns and board broken windows, according to the report commissioned by a partnership of local government and civic organizations called ReBuild Ohio.
The study is one of two released this week dealing with issues tied to the region’s foreclosure crisis. Cleveland’s Housing Research & Advocacy Centerreported Monday that a disproportionate number of black Ohioans end up with high-interest subprime mortgages.
For its study on vacant properties, ReBuild Ohio chose the cities, large and small, as snapshots of the state. Other cities in the survey – Columbus, Dayton, Ironton, Lima, Springfield, Toledo and Zanesville – together totaled $28 million in abandoned-properties costs.
Read the rest of the Cleveland.com story here
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On CNBC, there’s an article about high profile exec. expected to meet before Congress regarding their bonus packages.
I truly hope the senators will use this opportunity to also question the CEOs on loss mitigation and rate modification practices.
Everyday, thousands of consumers follow the \’e2\’80\’9cpreached\’e2\’80\’9d advice President Bush, Sectary Paulson, and HUD Chairman, in contacting their lender as a first step towards mortgage recovery when facing hardship.
It makes me so angry when many of the lenders like Countrywide, are the first to jump on the soapbox and act as the \’e2\’80\’9cgolden-boy\’e2\’80\’9d in wanting to help and protect homeowners from foreclosure.
Ask them, how many of their consumers have applied for help, and what percentages are approved?
Ask them, why is there such a internal discrepancy between Loss Mitigation/Work-out department and the Credit Reporting Division; who tact on lates to consumer credit?
Ask them, why is a consumer told by loss mitigation/work-out dept not to make payments because once their modification is \’e2\’80\’9capproved\’e2\’80\’9d the back payment amounts will be reinstated, only to find out that the Credit Dept., has been tacking on \’e2\’80\’9clates\’e2\’80\’9d to their credit report, placing them in a worse situation then when they started? Not to mention that their modification is then denied, forcing them to come up with thousands of dollars in back-payments or be forced to sale/foreclose. Thus making the consumer now unable to qualify for a refinance anywhere, because of the reported mortgage lates!
Ask them why Moody\’e2\’80\’99s found that most subprime-loan servicers this year had modified only about 1 percent of their adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that had reset to higher rates by the end of July
So much misinformation is given to consumer and false expectation, when in the end the Lenders have not taken any serious action to follow through on their empty promises. They love playing the \’e2\’80\’9crole\’e2\’80\’9d of a rescuer in front of CNBC and CNN, but in reality CEOs of these banks continue to line their pockets with $1000 bills.
It seems only the consumers feel the affects and understand the tactics being used by lenders, while senators and lenders watch from the sidelines pretending to be advocates for the people!