It is just unthinkable that 40 Riverside families are displaced. Is it really that the lender took possession of all these properties or could it be that the banks negotiated with the homeowners by lowering mortgage payments allowing them to catch up?
I wish someone would hold a fundraiser to set up an aide fund to help Riversiders who find themselves in this predicament.
I don't personally know anyone this has happened to (I don't think, anyway.) I wonder how much of the problem is hidden in plain sight?
I don't know. What I do know, as a student in the College of Hard Knocks, is that NOBODY is talking about the homeless. There is no mention in any of the mainstream media of the homeless numbers. I recall with certain other presidents that was announced in every newscast---how many homeless there are. How can there not be, with the foreclosure and bankruptcy rates through the roof? Can our little oasis of Riverside really be immune to the big bad world out there?
On a related subject, I see that the library is no longer offering free Panera Bread on Wednesday. Could it be that there were too many people in that bread line?
Hands, please, if you are frightened for what we are becoming? Taxed without representation (see the above posts by Chris Hajer), treaties signed to render the US helpless in a nuclear attack--but which gives Russia the power to opt out? I want my country back.
I just heard that it is *tax freedom* day. Tax freedom came a little early this year because there are so many unemployed. With so many unemployed, do they all own there homes? Where are they living? For how long? 47% of people do not pay federal taxes.
Most of the homes listed on the site that Kelly links to are not in foreclosure--the owners are in default, but the bank has not foreclosed yet. I suspect the same was true when there were more homes on this site. This is not to say that folks have not been foreclosed on, but many do see the writing on the wall and try to get out before foreclosure is declared. Others simply walk away (which as far as I know, still leaves them with the tax bill).
Thanks John - I now see that if you click on the foreclosure line it shown the status of the properties. It shows that 5 homes of the 20 on the foreclosure list are REO (real estate owned) bank owned. I wonder what that number was in March. I'm still holding out hope that the owners were able to negotiate with the bank and were able to stay in their homes.
FYI - here's today's foreclosure list on Trulia.com for zip 60546.
http://www.trulia.com/IL/Riverside/60546/#for_sale/60546_zip/foreclosure_lt/
If you look at foreclosures AND repos it's even worse.
I see Crain's says strip mall vacancies are at a 30-year high, and 50 plus area hotels are in financial deep water. The commercial real estate fiasco is starting to surface...
Here's waht Warren Buffet says about real estate:
“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote Saturday in his annual letter to the shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway. “Prices will remain far below ‘bubble’ levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits. Indeed, many families that couldn’t afford to buy an appropriate home a few years ago now find it well within their means.”
Record foreclosures flooded a U.S. real estate market already glutted with unsold property, causing housing starts to fall.
“People thought it was good news a few years back when housing starts — the supply side of the picture — were running about 2 million annually,” wrote Buffett, 79, chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire. “But household formations — the demand side — only amounted to about 1.2 million.”
I saw a piece on The Newshour tonite on FL real estate in the Tampa area. Some homes that sold in 2005 for $250K are now available below $100K. Some people have been buying homes as low as $25K! They take investors/buyers around on buses to see foerclosed properties.. .
Here's something Buffet did last week:
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway continues to look for opportunities in the beaten-down real estate sector.
Berkshire affiliate HomeServices of America Inc. announced Wednesday that it is purchasing Schiller Real Estate, which is described as the leading residential real estate firm in Elmhurst, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.
Schiller is being merged with Chicago-based Koenig & Strey Real Living, which HomeServices bought this past September. The combined operation will be the Chicago area’s third-largest.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The purchases follow Buffett’s long-standing practice of buying into sectors that most people aren’t touching.
Buffett has said that the worst of the country’s housing problems should be over by the end of the year, and that builders should stop putting up new houses until the existing inventory clears. He’s also encouraged young couples to speed up the number of household formations, with tongue only partially in cheek. Clearly he sees an eventual turnaround in real estate prices and activity.
From RealtyTrac today:
IRVINE, Calif. – April 15, 2010 — RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for Q1 2010, which shows that foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 932,234 properties in the first quarter, a 7 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 16 percent increase from the first quarter of 2009. One in every 138 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the quarter.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in March, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the previous month, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March 2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.
“Foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2010 followed a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first quarter of 2009: a shallow trough in January and February followed by a substantial spike in March,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “One difference, however, is that the increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure, with REOs increasing 9 percent on a quarterly basis in the first quarter of 2010 compared to a 13 percent quarterly decrease in REOs in the first quarter of 2009.
“This subtle shift in the numbers pushed REOs to the highest quarterly total we’ve ever seen in our report and may be further evidence that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory that has built up over the last year as foreclosure prevention programs and processing delays slowed down the normal foreclosure timeline.”
Tribune West Cook and Dupage Housing Prices
Sunday Tribune April 18, 2010
Riverside
Aug - Oct 2008 21 units sold at a median of $430,000
Aug - Oct 2009 25 units sold at a median of $315,000
Quartly comparisons of Chicago and suburban housing prices are available at chicagotribune.com/pricepulse. When you look there, however, it says the median value of homes sold in Riverside in the past three months is $367,00.
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