Foreclosure Clusters Growing in Antioch

December 6th, 2007

The US has been badly hit by a powerful, tidal wave of foreclosures. This wave has uprooted people from their homes in the most damaging way. The biggest losses in the context of economic activities is quite severe because the country’s economic barometer is at an all time low, being bashed by the real estate meltdown totally and battered some of the country’s most well established financial institutions as well.

No wonder, the experts estimate that metros are going to face the brunt of this more than other places. It is estimated that New York would have losses totaling up to $10.4 billion in the sphere of its economic activity in 2008. It is predicted that this rank would be followed by Los Angeles that is expected to suffer loss of about $8.3 billion. You would find Dallas as well as Washington totaling losses of about $4 billion each while Chicago losses are estimated to be somewhere around $3.9 billion.

Let’s just briefly tour around the foreclosure clusters that have badly ravaged the East Bay streets as well as its neighborhoods that closely resemble the remains of an old ghost town inhabited by houses that look houses and easy targets for thieves, drug dealers as well as street squatters.

Another county that has been severely hit by foreclosures is Solano with every one of its 43 homes getting its share of being hit by foreclosures.

In southeast part of Antioch, you would be greeting by kids who have lost their homes so they live like jungle kids near groves where real estate sign such as “For Sale” are hung up to attract buyers who want to cash in on a cheap deal, thanks to these foreclosures. Sometimes you would even find that there would be eight or ten vacant houses around a single block which is a shocking fact of real estate reality now. Most buyers are keen to buy because the home cost in Antioch dipped to 30 percent. The current figures pinpoint to about 1200 homes being put up for sale in the city in which banks own at least a third of these.

The story gets sadder not better. You would find the long, wide driveways of several vacant houses on the street are now converted to parking lots for the neighborhood which has become a social embarrassment to those who haven’t been hit by the problem of foreclosures till then. Most survivors grapple with the humiliation of being surrounded by an empty neighborhood because houses around them were foreclosed and therefore empty of people.

Foreclosure crisis is now like an epidemic but experts say that the impact has only just begun.