In the Dec 6, 2010 issue of The Daily Free Press (The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University) journalist, Jake Bann, wrote an article titled “All signs point to stagnancy in Boston.”
http://dailyfreepress.com/2010/12/06/all-signs-point-to-stagnancy-in-boston/
Bann explains that the average time between foreclosure and actual eviction is around 484 days (or about 16 months); information that he attributes to an article from the Nov 29, 2010 issue of Time Magazine titled “The Case of the Missing Mortgage,” which appears to be the same article written by Stephen Gandel that’s titled “Foreclosure Foul-up: Tracking Down Those ‘Lost’ Mortgages.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2032110,00.html
Regardless of the title, the message is the same. According to RealtyTrac, the nation’s authority on foreclosures (or so they advertise), one in every 139 housing units received foreclosure notices between the second and third quarters of 2010. Fox News reported that 288,345 properties were foreclosed from July through September, but that 930,437 homeowners received foreclosure warnings.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/14/record-number-foreclosures-face-challenge-court/#
Bann mentioned that when mortgage prices are higher than the property is worth, homeowners that lose their jobs have no choice but to default on their loans. But it’s not just the upside down mortgages that are in default. Neighborhoods all over the country are saturated with empty homes, and front lawns from Boston to Berkeley are littered with For Sale signs. Many thousands of unemployed homeowners would prefer to sell their homes rather than face foreclosure and lose their credit, but houses are just not selling, even houses that appraise for more than the balance due.
Conversations over coffee at Starbuck’s reveal that people are really scared as they watch their neighbors load up moving vans and slip away quietly under the camouflage of night. In this scenario, the unemployed refugees are either moving in with other family members or turning to the nation’s shelters for sanctuary. And, as the numbers of the homeless increase, millions of homes across America sit empty; homes that no longer use electricity, water, gas, or generate property taxes; homes that housed families of consumers who supported the local businesses, events, and medical facilities; and homes that become eyesores as the abandoned structures are left to the elements, vandalism, and neglect.
Bann also quoted Michael Johnson, director of the Public Policy Ph.D program at UMass. Johnson said, “The first wave of foreclosures was triggered by declining property values, but the second wave happening now is triggered by unemployment.” Unemployment that, according to the Department of Labor, reached a seven-month high of 9.8 percent in November, with 6.4 million Americans out of work for more than 27 weeks. And, in spite of the government’s efforts to stimulate the economy and create more jobs, the numbers continue to escalate.
Wake up folks; the Grapes of Wrath are upon us again, now in the 21st century. And, as John Steinbeck wrote when he was creating this novel, “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this Great Depression and its effects.” Translation: America’s greed will once again collapse our nation.
