Archive for the 'cities' Category

Pittsburgh bank foreclosures continue to drop in number as the city continues its successful transformation from a place battered by the collapse of its manufacturing enterprises to a city flying high with its mix of growing steel, biotechnology and clean energy industries.

The city was even chosen by President Obama as the site of the summit of G-20 leaders in September to showcase the success of Pittsburgh in rising up from its difficulties.

According to Pittsburgh-based real estate information provider RealSTATS, home foreclosures in Pittsburgh dropped by nearly 20 percent compared to foreclosures in 2008.

In the Pittsburgh metro area, which covers the counties of Allegheny, Butler, Beaver, Westmoreland and Washington, foreclosures peaked in 2006 with a total of 4,337. Since then, foreclosures continued to drop every year. This year will be the third straight year that foreclosures decreased, according to RealSTATS researchers.

Foreclosures in Allegheny County dropped by nearly 12 percent between the years 2007 and 2008. Only Washington County saw an increase year over year. This year, Washington posted 326 foreclosures, an increase of 2.2 percent from the 319 foreclosures posted in 2008.

The biggest drop occurred in Westmoreland, where foreclosures fell by more than 32 percent. Foreclosures in Butler, Allegheny and Beaver fell by 24.2 percent, 22 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.

Because of the continued drop in Pittsburgh bank foreclosures and the city’s stunning transformation, Pittsburgh was voted second best city in the country to launch a business.

According to Fortune magazine, Pittsburgh offers all the types of skills needed by businesses to start, thrive and grow. It said that the steelmaking history of the city has provided workers with manufacturing skills not commonly found elsewhere.

Fortune said that Pittsburgh offers a blend of highly skilled machinists and highly educated professionals from the universities of Pittsburgh, Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon. The existence of higher-education institutions in the city provides businesses with experts in health care, robotics and artificial intelligence.

The easy access of Pittsburgh to major east-west and north-south interstate highways are also a big help to enterprises that need links to access distant suppliers and to reach distant markets.

Another positive factor working for Pittsburgh is the high level of entrepreneurship and innovation in the city. Businesspeople said they are able to innovate because of the city’s strong workforce, low crime rate and reasonable wages.

Philadelphia bank foreclosures have not increased in number as fast as in other cities because of various programs launched by the city and the state of Pennsylvania, in addition to the federal loan modification and refinancing programs.

In the nationwide foreclosure report released this week by an online research firm, Pennsylvania ranked low in the foreclosure rate chart for the third quarter this year. While the worst affected state, Nevada, has one out of every 23 households in default or foreclosure, Pennsylvania has one in every 387 units in default or foreclosure.

The state was 34th in the chart, with only 14,167 households receiving default or foreclosure postings in the third quarter, including 3,973 bank-repossessed units.

One of the programs that have successfully helped control the rise in foreclosures in Philadelphia is the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, which was launched in April 2008. This program has helped approximately 1,400 families to save their homes from foreclosure by delaying sheriff’s sales so distressed homeowners can negotiate with their lenders for lower monthly payments in sessions supervised by the court.

Pamela Kennebrew, a counselor working with the project, said she has received a lot of cards from homeowners thanking her and the project for helping them keep their homes.

Terry Gillen, meanwhile, who works as an adviser to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, said that the program is small compared to the breadth of Philadelphia bank foreclosures, but if 1,400 families so far were saved from the streets, then the program is already a success.

Now, John Dodds, head of the Philadelphia project, is focusing more on helping unemployed homeowners. He has been campaigning for the provision of direct loans to unemployed homeowners. He reiterated that many of the 7.2 million workers who were laid off since the beginning of the crisis have also lost their homes and those who have been able to continue paying will soon lose theirs too if there is no significant intervention from the government.

Another program that has been helping contain foreclosures in the city is the mandatory mediation program, which was even used as a model for foreclosure prevention in other cities. This program was carried out in partnership with nonprofits whose counselors went from door to door to distribute flyers about the program and reach out to distressed homeowners.

New York bank foreclosures in the housing sector rose in two foreclosure charts released by an online real estate research firm.

In September, bank repossessed homes totaled 967 units, a sharp increase from 537 units in August. In the July to September quarter, nearly 1,900 units were repossessed by lenders. The state foreclosure rate increased by more than 11 percent from the previous quarter and by more than 5 percent compared to the third quarter last year.

The September foreclosure rate increased by more than 6 percent from the previous month of August and by more than 71 percent compared to September 2008.

New York posted nearly 5,700 foreclosure filings in September and nearly 15,300 filings in the July to September quarter. One household out of every 521 households was put into the foreclosure process during the quarter.

According to housing analysts, despite the lower position of New York in nationwide foreclosure charts, the pace of foreclosure throughout the state has been rising. At the start of the foreclosure crisis, New York was believed to be immune from the housing market problem. But the recession worsened, causing the collapse of financial institutions in New York and putting many New Yorkers out of work and out of their homes.

Now, cutting down the number of New York bank foreclosures in the residential sector is a major part of the third-term campaign agenda of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

When Bloomberg ran in the past, his campaign promoted social engineering projects that focused on pushing public art and cityscape to more lofty levels. But now, his top priority is to help New Yorkers save their jobs and houses.

His plans to create jobs, increase affordable housing and prevent more foreclosures were already part of his program over the past year, but the city’s budget deficit of $5 billion has been making the implementation of city programs difficult.

For these coming months, Bloomberg plans to provide emergency grants to around 1,000 distressed homeowners and to save about 3,000 houses from foreclosure.

Campaign advisers Andrea Batista Schlesinger and Brian Mahanna said they will also continue crafting projects to assist working-class families. The city has negotiated with banks to offer bank accounts without overdraft fees and minimum balance and is planning to fund community credit unions to enable them to offer loans to working families.

Prices for Jacksonville bank foreclosures rose slightly in August, according to a real estate research firm.

Indianapolis bank foreclosures will be auctioned off at deep discounts at the downtown Mariott Hotel this weekend. The starting bids for the foreclosure homes will range from $500 to $59,000.

Hialeah bank foreclosures will have a significant impact on the census count in the city next year, just like in every other area of the U.S. affected by foreclosures.

Fort Worth bank foreclosures are also now including a lot of condos, just like other cities with a glut of distressed condo units, according to Addison-based real estate research firm and based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

A large portion of Las Vegas bank foreclosures were purchased as rental investments in August, based on home sales data collected by two real estate research firms.

The still-high number of Phoenix bank foreclosures has been getting the attention of various nonprofits, government entities and investors in Arizona and the federal government.

The still high number of low-priced San Jose bank foreclosures has driven city officials to suspend the city’s affordable housing regulation for housing developers.