You Just Can’t Hide It: Until the market and the judiciary gets real about these mortgages, foreclosures will continue to skyrocket, people will walk away from their homes, and the demand for alternative housing needs will skyrocket as well — which might be the underlying reason why nobody wants to do principal reduction and solve the problem.
Throwing millions of people out of their homes creates a false “demand” for lower income housing. The supply of such housing is currently drying up. So the excuse for building newer and cheaper housing and renting them at a profit or selling them at higher and higher interest rates results in an incentive to maintain the status quo. The status quo in this case is a movement to throw as many people out on the street as possible.
Foreclosures keep climbing in Wisconsin
Foreclosure lawsuits filed in Circuit Court in 2009 reached 1,352, up 29 percent from the year before. The figure is almost triple the number from 2005, when it was 505.
High foreclosures rates often have detrimental effects on communities, according to various studies. Neighborhoods with an excessive list of foreclosed properties often have more crime; credit scores for borrowers in foreclosure often drop; homelessness might increase, and property tax income for municipalities can fall.
Kenosha County’s jump in foreclosures last year has created a greater workload for the Sheriff’s Department, which handles posting of properties to be sold at auction, oversees the auction and helps keep the peace at sites where owners are being evicted, officials said. Deputies conduct a sheriff’s auction of the properties every Wednesday at the county courthouse.
Experts have said the growing roster of those defaulting on loan repayments is tied to more people being unemployed, drained savings and subprime loan failures.
Foreclosures here grew to 605 in 2006, a 20 percent hike; to 821 in 2007, a 36 percent jump, and to 1,050 in 2008, a 28 percent increase.
Foreclosures usually start with lenders sending a notice that the borrower defaulted on the loan. If payments aren’t arranged, the lender could file a lawsuit to foreclose on the mortgage. When a judge grants foreclosure, the property is sold by auction and proceeds are used to pay off the loan.
When no one buys the property, the lender owns it.
Kenosha Sheriff Sgt. Gil Benn said foreclosure postings — properties being auctioned — skyrocketed from 493 in 2007 to 772 in 2008 and to 1,266 in 2009. That’s a 157 percent jump in two years.
“We’ve already gotten significant entries for 2010, and I see us maintaining the numbers we’ve done,” he said.
Benn said the type of evictions also has changed. He said they used to involve apartment dwellers and a few furnishings but now are more likely to be houses and all their contents.
Benn said foreclosure-related work is being spread among Sheriff’s Department personnel. A home’s new owner pays for a deputy to oversee the move and for the movers. There also are fees for a deputy to deliver legal papers involved.
Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud Tagged: John Krerowicz, Kenosha News, Kensoha County, principal reduction, Wisconsin 
