Foreclosure: General Advices Is Not To Delay Response To Foreclosures

General Advices Is Not To Delay Response To Foreclosures

December 11th, 2007

Once thriving communities have become ghost towns with boarded house broken in by vandals and criminals. Foreclosures have laid a curse on the country.

What is the answer? At a Regional Housing Forum in Atlanta many suggestions were made and top priority was given to avoidance of bankruptcy. Help should be at hand as soon as the borrower is lagging behind 30 to 45 days in mortgage payments. After 90 days it will be difficult to stop foreclosure notices being issue. This is the general opinion of economic experts like Frank Alexander and consumer counseling groups. Alexander opines that banks should prompt borrowers to seek help as soon as warning signals blink.

The state Legislature along with the Governor should enforce extension of time gap between default and foreclosure sale. At present Georgia and Texas allow for only 37 days. The borrowers are hardly allowed time to breathe. Alexander and another economist Dan Immergluck suggests that there should be at least a three-month gap.

However it is too late for thousands of Atlanta families and individuals who have borne the brunt of foreclosures since 2001.

In an Utopian world the foreclosed houses would return to the market at bargain prices and families would once more light their home fires in their own houses. Although the lenders would benefit by quickly rehabilitating the abandoned houses and not let it pull them down like a millstone round their necks, they are under great pressure from the investors who want quick returns.

One suggestion is that they can take the help of Atlanta-Fulton Land Bank Authority and park their property there without having to pay taxes until these units are sold at a reasonable price. There is the option of working directly with non-profit groups who will see to the repairs as well as hunt around for buyers. The prime target of Atlanta Housing Association of Neighbourhood based Developers, is to replace the picture of street after street dotted with boarded abandoned houses with bustling families drying their washing and children tumbling all over. The Association has 25 members.

Local governments can pressurize lenders to maintain houses by putting a lien on the property. Atlanta city councilperson Mary Norwood has been cracking down on truant slum landlords. Foreclosures resulting in abandoned houses have led to innumerable problems like water shortage that has not spared even Grady Memorial Hospital.