Foreclosed Properties Can Be a Good Idea
Posted in Foreclosures, by Courtney Allen
Photo by Digitalart
According to an expert, the plan of restructuring foreclosed properties in Aurora for new housing units in this city is a very good idea. At a conference, the HOPE Fair Housing Center’s executive director, Anne Houghtaling said, “I think that’s great.”
The West Aurora School District provided the present foreclosure status of the city where it has been seen that there are nearly 510 foreclosed properties in this city which are owned by lenders. Besides these, there are nearly 1,260 delinquent homeowners who have stopped paying their monthly mortgage payments and their respective households are waiting to be foreclosed.
Last month, Mayor Tom Weisner declared the new idea of scattered-site plan for new affordable housing estates.
Houghtaling said that prospective homeowners of the society must be encouraged to buy these homes so that they can help the development of this foreclosure devastated community. Police officers, nurses, volunteers of returning Peace Corps and Teach for America are some of the prospective buyers who can buy these houses at a discount or with the help of different incentives.
She also warned that according to the rules and regulations of US Department of Housing and Urban Development, these new housing units will not be developed in a particular area, so the plan for a scattered site model will have to be implemented. She added, “I don’t know how integrative that’s going to be in terms of scattered site housing. You’d want them to be in a wide variety of neighborhoods.”
While implementing this new plan of housing units, city officials will have to keep racial concentrations in mind. Moreover, according to Houghtaling, the cost of development and management of this scattered housing model is also a major factor. So, she had doubts about whether the total expense for this plan would actually be feasible or not.
Ex-Police Chief of Aurora, Bill Powell also shared the same doubts because there are serious housing issues in this region. He said, “Part of the issue I have is we warehouse people.”
Moreover, the task force reviewed the information provided by American Community Survey for 2009-10. The database shows a perfect statistical comparison between Aurora and Naperville. There are 3% people in Naperville who are living in poverty whereas in Aurora, it is 9%.
In Aurora, the average family income is $59,844 and affordable homes are priced at $178,161. The picture is quite different in Naperville. There, the average family income is $98,488 and the affordable home value is $301,509.
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