ACORN: North Carolina Foreclosures, an Epidemic?
Friday, June 29th, 2007A report, containing the list of neighborhoods in 100 cities with high foreclosure rates and released by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now shows that the state of North Carolina may be suffering from a foreclosures epidemic. From 2005 to 2006, the number of North Carolina foreclosure listings increased by 45 percent. But from May 2006 to 2007, there was an 83.31 percent change in North Carolina foreclosures rate.
The group is only considering one reason for the increase in foreclosures activity and that is predatory lending. Many owners currently facing foreclosures took out loans with adjustable interest rates, without really knowing what they were doing. Enticed by these predatory lenders, they were lead to believe that they are getting a great deal. After two years, the interest rates reset and left owners with monthly mortgage payments that they could not pay. The considerable rise in monthly mortgage dues amounted to $1000 or more.
Such circumstances resulted to a large inventory of North Carolina foreclosed homes. As of May 2007, the state has the 19th highest foreclosures rate in the nation, with one filing for every 1,149 homes. Current real estate market conditions are favoring buyers over sellers. Hopefully, there would be enough sales activity to correct the market and reduce the negative impact to home prices. Sellers are working closely with foreclosures brokers like MostlyForeclosures.com to ensure that their foreclosure homes for sale are receiving maximum exposure.
In addition to this, ACORN is currently trying to convince national and state officials to enforce stricter regulations on lending guidelines and at the same time, put an immediate moratorium on all foreclosures that resulted from these predatory lending practices. In 2006, North Carolina recorded 22,000 foreclosure filings while nationwide, there were more than a million filings.
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