Southwest Valley has been heavily hit by foreclosure homes. The total number of foreclosures in the first half of 2008 in Goodyear, Avondale, Tolleson, Litchfield Park, and Buckeye were 2,195. This is an increase of 413 from what it was last year during the same time. It has been found that the increase in this real estate problem in the Southwest Valley has been due to heavy increase in the foreclosures in Litchfield Park and Tolleson. It has increased the number of foreclosures in the Southwest Valley by 563 percent and 665 percent respectively. It has been seen that apart from the poor income areas, those areas with higher income have also fallen into foreclosure trap.

Other than high loans, an additional $40 per month on HOA fees has also led to foreclosure on many homes. The Southwest Valley has been highly affected as many new homes were constructed between 2002 and 2005 whose homeowners got trapped into subprime loans in a bid to buy larger homes for themselves. About 60 to 70 percent homes in Goodyear are owned by banks. Though sales have gone up but the prices have fallen down greatly. The average foreclosure rate in Avondale and Buckeye is greater than the Maricopa County.

The first time buyers are taking the advantage of this situation and buying their real estate property at a price that they could have never thought. According to real estate agent Greg Marthaler, the primary reason behind the increasing foreclosure rate in the Southwest Valley is the quick profitable mentality of the investors who purchased homes. Foreclosures affect the whole community badly as has been seen in Avondale where with every single foreclosure, the HOA fees goes up for other residents too. As president of the Los Arbolitos Homeowners’ Association in Avondale Kent Miller said, “When one home forecloses, everyone has to pay.”

Tolleson was found to be a prospective market for the real estate investors. But as the market declined, many fell into the foreclosure problem, which in turn decreased the market value of the homes, a price much lower than what it cost when purchased. It is assumed that that the areas in the Southwest Valley that are farthest from Interstate 10 might take a bit longer duration to come out of the problem due to the increase in the price of energy and gas. It is envisioned that the five year adjustable rate mortgages as a result of reset in 2010 might lead to even worse a foreclosure scenario.

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Apart from real estate, foreclosed homes are also creating a big problem for the students. A large number of students whose homes have been foreclosed are going to schools but are so poor that they are unable to afford free meals even. Jefferson County, which is a 98,000 student district, including Louisville and its suburbs, has been suffering from financial problems. As the state has made a reduction of $43 million on education, so the Jefferson County school officials have increased the lunch prices and stopped 17 bus services. The increasing rate of foreclosure has led to reduction in costs in schools across the nation.

A large number of teachers and other school officials in Miami-Dade County and Los Angeles have lost their job. The cost of fuel and food are increasing but the school revenues are same. This is having a heavily bad impact on schools. A large number of schools in Ohio and California have either stopped their bus service or have cut bus stops in a bid to save diesel. Schools in the districts of Minnesota and Louisiana have taken up a four-day school weeks. Two of the charities in the suburban Detroit have declared that they are going to give out student backpacks.

There was a tripling in the number of homeless students from 850 in 2006-2007 term to 2,500 in the last school year. This is expected to soar high further. Anne Malone, who helps homeless students, has said that nearly 10 families face foreclosure every day in Louisville. It has been found that about 7,600 homeless students have been enrolled with the term ending in June, 2008, which were 7,300 an year before. The Monday classes have been eliminated by the Caldwell Parish School District, located in northern Louisiana, in a bid to save fuel.

About 58,000 students in the Jefferson County in 2007 were entitled to free or reduced-price meals. It is envisioned that this number is going to go high by 62,000. Last year about 14.9 million students nationwide were eligible for free lunches and this year it is expected that there will be an additional 283,000 students to it. According to the National School Lunch Program, the families with four members with an earning not more than $39,220 per annum, the children of those families is eligible for a 30 cent reduction in breakfast and 40 cent reduction in lunch. But if the family earns less than $27,560, their children are eligible for free meals.

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The increasing rate of foreclosure homes has led to a drop in the value of home prices in the west such as Nevada and California in the month of July. This has in turn increased the rate of existing home sales. Nearly 1.1 million condominiums and pre-owned properties in the 13 state regions were sold last month. This is a 1 percent hike from what it was last year during the same period. There have been a 13.2 percent decline in the existing-home sales in US from July, 2007 and a 3.1 percent increase from June. The real estate market in the western region has been proving beneficial for some buyers as the price has gone down.

Ysidro Simental, a warehouse clerk, has bought a house in Corona, east of Los Angeles, which he could never have afforded to buy two years back. He bought the house at an auction for $347,000, after the house went into foreclosure activity. It was priced at $510,000 in 2006. Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco were counted among those top 10 markets that had the most exorbitant decline in median-home-price last month. Among these, the hottest real estate market has been the Metropolitan Las Vegas.

There has been about 31 percent increase last month in the home sales in comparison to what it was last year, in the metropolitan Los Angeles. The median home price dropped down to $335,000, which is a 35 percent decline from the figures of July 2007. A major decline in the home prices have been seen in Seattle and Portland. Seattle’s median home price dropped down to $340,000 last month, which is a 6.9 percent decline than the figure a year ago. There has been an 8.3 percent increase in the home sales in San Diego and California and 3.1 percent increase in the sales in San Francisco.

However, home sales in other parts of the western region remained somewhat down. These include places like Salt Lake City, Denver, Boise, Billings, Alaska, Honolulu, Anchorage, Albuquerque, Idaho, and Mont. According to the district director of the Seattle area for ZipRealty Inc., Michael Tenore,

“We’ve basically been going through this standoff between buyers and sellers. We’re just seeing more and more increases in inventory and sales coming down.”

He further said that the sellers are not willing to sell their properties at big discounts to the buyers in these regions even under the tight foreclosure situation.

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Connecticut, a state that is ideally situated in the New England region of north-eastern USA is today a victim of foreclosures. There has been a tremendous rate of house foreclosures in the cities of Connecticut and the worst sufferer is the Windham County. Even after this, the foreclosures and distress sales of this state are pressing the value of houses throughout the state of Connecticut. This has been especially done in the towns with low income and other bigger cities of the state. If this situation continues, then it will further aggravate the problem of foreclosures which might lead to loss of employment in the long run. This is likely to hit the real estate industry of the state. It has already been noticed that due to the increase in the price of food, gas, and oil, the household budget in Connecticut is already at stake.

The Windham County is suffering from about 23 home foreclosures related matters per 1,000 households. The situation is getting worse day by day in Connecticut. One of the reasons that can be pointed out behind this tough situation is the increase in the price of goods that has hit hard the low income group especially. The greatest problem associated with the foreclosures is that it brings down the value of the nearby properties by about $5,000- quite a big deal in fact. It is indeed a big blow to the real estate sector. The increase in foreclosures has brought down the prices by approximately 18 percent. Some investors are taking the advantage of this situation and are buying the properties at a much cheaper rate.

Ann Davis, a resident of Green Hollow Road of Killingly, is undergoing the problem of house foreclosures. She bought everything to furnish her house on credit cards and now has to repay a huge amount. A divorcee and mother of two sons, she is at complete loss today. The state has taken initiatives in order to help the people to come out of this unmanageable situation. One among the various measures taken is directly assisting for refinancing the loans. This will definitely help in reducing the house foreclosures to some extent and help in the development of the real estate industry of the state. It will bring a ray of hope for the people like Ann Davis. We hope that the state of Connecticut will see a better tomorrow very soon.

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According to the Conference Board, consumer confidence is at its lowest in the last 16 years. Since 1982, consumers have not faced such a bleak future in terms of jobs and inflation. With housing prices at low ebb, gasoline costing more and inflation affecting food and medical bills, consumers are indeed hard hit.

This is reflected in the fact that fewer people are spending on high expenditure items like cars and homes. Consumers appear confronted with the walk away prices for all sorts of goods.

With rising gas prices, 2007 saw fewer people using their own vehicles and resorting to public transport instead. Statistics from the American Public Transportation Association support this, showing a two percent increase in the usage of public transportation last year. In fact, the Department of Transportation recorded that Americans drove 4.3 percent fewer miles in March 2008 than a year ago. This amounts to 11 billion miles less in the overall count. The Energy Information Administration too anticipates a 0.4 percent fall in gas consumption as compared to last year.

As with gas consumption, a pullback has also been observed in the housing market. With fewer people investing in homes the prices have fallen steeply. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reported that housing prices went down by over 3 percent in the first quarter of 2008. In 43 states the purchase index reflected a fall in prices with California and Florida showing the highest decline. Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Texas and Alabama however showed an appreciation in home prices.

The purchase index bears testimony to the all encompassing credit crunch as well as the fear holding the housing market in its grip, even in areas which are economically strong.

The trends reflected by the purchase index are significant. The calculation of the price declines are based on homes that have been purchased with conventional loans from the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These secondary market providers are overseen by OFHEO. This makes the report all the more significant as these calculations exclude volatile jumbo and sub-prime loans unlike other purchase indices.

The Commerce Department offers a ray of hope in this situation. According to it, April 2008 saw new home sales going up by over 3 percent. Although this figure is still 42 percent less than what it was at the same time last year, it is an optimistic sign. And maybe, home buyers are not at the walk away price yet.

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The former senator of North Carolina, and also a presidential contender, Democrat John Edwards is not in favor of the lenders who are filing foreclosure cases against the delinquent homeowners - especially those who are sufferers of Hurricane Katrina. Fortress Investment Group’s sub-prime lending unit has filed foreclosure suits against the 35 homeowners in New Orleans, as pointed out by The Wall Street Journal.

The interesting part is that John Edward himself is linked indirectly with the lenders. His $ 16 million is invested in the Fortress Funds. Fortress is a publicly listed private equity fund, and Mr. Edward worked in the company in 2005 and 2006. This data was released in the report of the Federal Election Commission as an aid for the campaign.

This disclosure of his connection with Fortress can provide some relief to the delinquent house owners in New Orleans. Mr. Edward assured the people that he will himself extend financial support to those who have lost their property already or who are about to face the foreclosure by Fortress. This statement was made by Mr. Edward only when he was enquired about the subject.

He also added that he will not be investing any more of his family’s money in the firm. If the firm has profited from filing suits against these delinquent loans, then he will dissociate his investments from it. He will not maintain a portfolio that is gaining from someone else’s losses. He said he will not continue to invest in the firm if it has a stake in the foreclosure homes.

But there is still an uncertainty about how he is going to work this out, either by modifying his assets or by aiding borrowers. However, his plans are to contact the homeowners of New Orleans first, and then to see how much they have proceeded. He wishes to provide help either by extending funds from his own pocket or in partnership with a charitable trust specialized in revamping homes.

Foreclosures and sub-prime loans on real estate was the main agenda of Mr. Edwards’s campaign trail. He continuously attacked the sub-prime mortgage firms and their disgraceful lending practices. He said because Washington not acting seriously on this issue, lenders got their strength to torture hard working homeowners. He spoke against lenders who are issuing foreclosures in Louisiana, which was recently badly hit by a storm. He visited Lower Ninth Ward in April to raise his voice against the poverty caused by the foreclosure crisis in the real estate properties there.

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The storm of foreclosure is flooding the entire country. Still, there are some places where the rate of foreclosures has declined even though the countrywide rate is increasing. A fresh report by RealtyTrac names some areas where the rate of foreclosures has fallen compared to that in the last year.

As per the yearly average statement of RealtyTrac, foreclosures rates have declined by two digits in more than a dozen areas in almost ninety prime locations. This is because there are some markets which were not touched by the calamity of foreclosures. Locations like Greenville, Little Rock, McAllen, Charleston have had a very low number of default notices, bank buys and auctions in the first half of this year as compared to that of last year.

In Salt Lake City the foreclosures rate were down by 40 percent, and 37 percent in Albuquerque compared to the figures from 2006. Sadly, the general trend of increase in foreclosure rates remains the same in other parts of the country.

11 out of the top 21 foreclosures filings are from Ohio and California cities.

In Stockton, the number has gone up by 257 percent compared to those in the last year during the same period. There were 8170 foreclosures filings on 4,240 properties. This is three times higher than the first six months of 2006.

Foreclosures filings include all the foreclosures notices i.e. default notices, bank repossessions, and auction notices which are filed during a given phase of time. If at least one foreclosure notice has been filed against a property, they are then termed as “properties with filings”.

Among the country’s largest metro areas, Motown has the second highest foreclosures rate. The ratio is one foreclosure filing for every 29 to 30 houses. Wayne County, in Detroit had 28704 foreclosure filings on 20232 properties, which are around 27 percent more than last year. This is almost twice the figure.

The third highest foreclosures rate is Sin City among the top metro areas. Here the ratio is one foreclosure filing for every 30 houses. In Clark County, Las Vegas there were 22927 foreclosure filings on 13026 properties. This number is double the figure from last year during the same period, and is around 71 percent more than last year.

Cities like Miami, FL; Sacramento, CA; Riverside-San Bernardino, Bakersfield, Memphis, TN and Cleveland, OH, Chicago, Los Angeles are also in the top ten listing of foreclosures filings.

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With the deepening of the mortgage crisis, which ultimately forced middle class families to opt for foreclosures, the stock market also got pretty shaken up. This issue was immediately sized upon by the Democratic presidential contenders. It became a perfect issue for them to accuse the republicans of letting unregulated companies of oppressing hardworking families.

Senator Hillary Clinton of New York said in New Hampshire Yesterday that she would ban the fees that penalize the early payments. Additionally she also offered to create a fund of around $1 billion to help the struggling homeowners who are trying to prevent foreclosures. Banning of a longer list of notorious lending practices, including balloon loans, in which rate of interest grows drastically over time was called for by John Edwards, the Former senator of North Carolina.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois led to the introduction of a bill which would impose new penalties on mortgage professionals who are guilty of fraud and propose to counsel homeowners who want to avoid foreclosure. Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut is putting in his own efforts so as to combat the prevalent problem of foreclosure in the real estate scenario. The more the crisis is prevalent in the economy, the further democrats put forward that Republican economic policies have scorned the families of middle and lower income class as per some campaign watchers.

Yesterday, Alan I. Abramowitz, a political scientist in the Emory University, said that it is a wonderful opportunity for the Democrats to disapprove of the collapse of the Bush administration. While delivering her speech at Ernest P. Barka Elementary School, Clinton put forth that the next president must “restore a sense of fairness to our economy.” She further said that “What the president calls the ownership-society; it’s the yo-yo economy,”. What she essentially meant is that some go up and some move downwards, while someone is pulling the strings. In fact this issue appealed to some of the residents who had heard Clinton lay out her plan to deal with the problems which begun in the subprime mortgage market affecting borrowers with blotchy credit records.

In fact some of the residents of Manchester feel that foreclosure is just one aspect of the economic squeeze that they face. Some had to shift to other city just because of the high property taxes. Hence they find themselves incapable of affording anything in the real estate market.

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The real estate industry has been affected by a wide sweep of foreclosures in recent times. Research has shown that the number of foreclosure filings in the nation has increased as much as 87% since this time last year.

With the foreclosures increasing at such an alarming pace, those in distress are naturally looking for ways through which they can save the roof above their heads. This has led to a whole new set of real estate scams and frauds aimed at duping the susceptible homeowner.

Many homeowners are desperate to save their property from being repossessed by the lenders and will do almost anything to get themselves out of the debt trap they find themselves in. Unscrupulous con artists and fraudulent companies are taking advantage of this and making hay while the sun shines. The rate at which these scams are spreading is causing widespread alarm in the real estate world.

The scams take varied forms. Many involve an individual or a company claiming that it will help homeowners facing foreclosures with offers of refinancing. Willing to grasp at every straw homeowners take up the offers without asking too many questions. They transfer their homes to the “re-financer”, who then proceeds to strip it of its equity. Thus instead of getting relief, at the end of the day homeowners find that they have lost even the little that they had left.

One company claimed that it had stopped over 250 foreclosures and had refinanced many thousands of homes. However when investigators visited their office they found that the company had shut down! A major class action suit was brought against the company, the Metropolitan Money Store and it was accused of cheating over 400 homeowners.

CBS News undertook an investigation into some of these scams. It found that there are more than 1100 cases dealing with foreclosure scams pending with the FBI at present. It is significant that just a few years ago in 2003, there were just 436 cases pending.

The service through which offer are made to foreclosure victims promising relief and a way to save their home is usually referred to as “foreclosure rescue”. Scammers have been able to take advantage of this because there are few monitoring regulations attached to this service. Foreclosure rescues are monitored in only seven states. In only one, Massachusetts is it considered illegal.

The National Consumer Law Centre has termed this phenomenon one of the most outrageous in the United States.

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