Forclosure woes touch all Mercer towns
BY ANDREW KITCHENMAN
Sunday, September 02, 2007Mercer County has been swept up in the mortgage meltdown affecting the nation, as foreclosures increase and residents face the re sults of taking out subprime mort gages with higher interest payments.
Foreclosure filings have risen from 728 through Aug. 20, 2006 to 928 for the same period this year, a 27.5-percent increase, according to the Mercer County Clerk’s office.
Some of those who can’t make their mortgage payments should never have received approval for the loans, according to Phyllis Sa lowe-Kaye, executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action, which provides mortgage counseling.
“They target low- and moderate-income minorities in urban areas,” Salowe-Kaye said of subprime lenders. She recalled one New Jersey resident with a $40,000 income who took out a $400,000 mortgage by claiming that renters would cover much of the mortgage cost.
New Jersey Citizen Action has provided counseling to hundreds of residents at its loan counseling center in Trenton.
The problem isn’t limited to cities like Trenton. While County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello said the number of foreclosures in Tren ton traditionally has led the count, the past year has seen foreclosures increase in suburban municipalities such as Hamilton.
While mortgages that are listed under foreclosure in public notices often are resolved before an actual sheriff’s sale, the increase in foreclosure notices in some Mercer municipalities has been stark.
Trenton had 166 foreclosure no tices in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 29 over last year; Hamilton increased from 40 to 50; and Lawrence increased from 13 to 23, according to Jeff Posner, owner of SheriffSalesOnline.com, a Web site that tracks both initial filings and notices.
The root cause of many recent foreclosures is the wave of subprime mortgages, according to mortgage experts. Subprime mort gages are given to people with low credit scores due to missing payments or having limited credit histories. Subprime mortgages have higher interest rates and fees than conventional mortgages. Read more…
Tags: Foreclosure Websites, Market Watch
According to the latest home sales data from the Realtors association, median home prices fell 0.6 percent from a year ago to $228,900. Lawrence Yun (National Association of Realtors economist) stated, “In the aggregate, we don’t see the subprime market damaging the economy”. Yeah, I agree, it’s the credit crunch and tightening of lending guidelines, that’s what’s going to kill the market. Simple supply and demand…lot’s of homes for sale, very few people with good credit and 20% to put down. With the crazy loans that were in the market we made real estate a much more liquid asset than it really is, shifting back is going to be a little painful in my opinion. But remember, a lot of wealth can change hands when the market shifts, just make sure you don’t get shifted on.
So there has finally been some good news on the housing market. July housing sales are up 2.8% as 
