Cities scramble to help distressed homeowners
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This article in the Sacramento Bee details how cities in and around the Sacramento area -- one of the areas hardest hit by the housing downturn -- are trying to reach out to homeowners threatened with foreclosure. They are responding to the rapidly rising number of bank-owned homes and for-sale signs flooding their communities.
According to the article:
Their initiatives so far are limited to offering advice. Nobody’s opening up the checkbook to bail out homeowners. But with city officials worried that homeowners aren’t seeking help after receiving notices of default -– the first step in the formal foreclosure process -– the moves have taken on a keen sense of urgency. ‘We don’t know how far this is going to go,’ says Jim Lynch, community enhancement manager in Citrus Heights. ‘We’ve had housing setbacks over my 35 years, but I’ve never seen this many bank-owned properties and so many foreclosures.’
More than 6,500 homeowners in the Sacramento region have lost their homes to foreclosure this year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
In the six counties of Southern California, more than 13,000 homes were repossessed by the bank in September alone. Meanwhile, Dr. Housing Bubble has done research showing that short sales, or homes on the market at prices for less than the balance of their mortgages, are more than 10% of listings in Riverside County, and are on the rise everywhere else.
Some communities are exploring government funding for nonprofit loan counselors. One such group in San Diego called Neighborworks has begun sending notices to borrowers in default urging them to call their lenders or meet with advisers.
Question: What are some specific programs launched by Southland communities to help homeowners on the bubble?
-- Posted by guest blogger Annette Haddad