Foreclosures now worse in Henry, Gwinnett than in Fulton, DeKalb

I just got back from the state Capitol, covering a congressional subcommittee hearing on mortgage foreclosures and banking problems. Dan Immergluck, an associate professor at Georgia Tech and one of the nation’s top experts on foreclosures and their impact, dropped a few of the more interesting nuggets.

For example, he told the subcommittee that over the last year or so, “foreclosure rates have increased the fastest in suburban and outlying counties,” rather than inner-city communities:

“By early 2009, the (foreclosure) rates in Henry and Gwinnett had surpassed those in the inner counties of Fulton and DeKalb, which had long had the highest foreclosure rates in the region. The suburbanization of the foreclosure crisis occurred across all suburban counties.”

He also told the subcommittee that in the first four months of the year, 45 percent of all repossessed homes sold by banks in Fulton County were “dumped” for less than $30,000.

For instant updates, follow the blog on Twitter.

176 comments Add your comment

Joan

November 2nd, 2009
2:28 pm

Well, when the foreclosures are all done with, housing values should have gone back to some realistic level, and the liberals, after all, will have finally made housing affordable for their great under/unemployed constituency. All it took was the CRA, Barney Frank, total collapse of the economy, and now we can put babymamas in those cheap homes. Ain’t life grand.

DoggoneGA

November 2nd, 2009
2:28 pm

“45 percent of all repossessed homes sold by banks in Fulton County were “dumped” for less than $30,000″

There goes the neighborhood!

Normal

November 2nd, 2009
2:30 pm

I personally think 30,000 is all you should have to pay for a four bedroom, four bath house with a double garage. Just wait until socialism starts, boy oh boy….

Mrs. Godzilla

November 2nd, 2009
2:31 pm

now we can put babymamas in those cheap homes……there’s your sign

Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)

November 2nd, 2009
2:33 pm

Well, I knowed it was a Recession when Those People in DeKalb and Fulton started loosing their homes. Now it’s spread to taking the homes of good White folk in Henry and Gwinnett. It’s a Depression! A Obama Depression! May the Good Lord help us all till we can get the librul Democrats out and put God back in Congress and the White House. Or Conservative Republicans. It don’t matter which.

O me! It wouldn’t suprize me none if bank people showed up and repossessed my beer truck.

Have a good p.m. everybody. And pray real hard.

USinUK

November 2nd, 2009
2:34 pm

Normal –

“Just wait until socialism starts, boy oh boy….”

you’re soaking in it!

;-)

Normal

November 2nd, 2009
2:34 pm

OH, I forgot, it’s all Bush’s fault too.

DoggoneGA

November 2nd, 2009
2:35 pm

“now we can put babymamas in those cheap homes……there’s your sign”

The “sign” came before that: CRA

Normal

November 2nd, 2009
2:38 pm

USinUK…Not sure if I’m soaking in it, but I think I’m sittin’ in something…

Mrs. Godzilla

November 2nd, 2009
2:40 pm

DoggoneGA

Wrong sign dude…..it’s the “babymama” that tells the tale…..

N-GA

November 2nd, 2009
2:43 pm

I still can’t believe that people are still blaming CRA. As a banker who had to conform to CRA, it had absolutely nothing to do with the mortgage crisis.

CRA stands for Community Reinvestment Act. It was passed in order to stop the banking industry practice of generating deposits in low income neighborhoods, then lending that money to customers in wealthier areas while denying credit to people in the communities where the deposits were sourced.

What CRA did was require banks wanting to open new branches to lend a specific percentage of those deposits to people in that branch/area. This could be auto loans, loans for household items like furniture and carpeting, etc. If a bank did not want to conform to CRA, they did not need to open the branch. And home loans were not the focus of CRA.

I suggest that you CRA whiners stop parroting your talking heads and learn a little about that of which you speak.

USinUK

November 2nd, 2009
2:44 pm

I’ve been saying for months – the banks should be using a few bulldozer brigades – clear out some of the fuster-cluck mcmansions (that have all the quality craftsmanship of a shoebox) … getting rid of the inventory will help raise property values AND get rid of some of the ugliest neighborhoods in the country. (plus, employment for the bulldozer guys!)

DoggoneGA

November 2nd, 2009
2:45 pm

“I still can’t believe that people are still blaming CRA”

Believe it. Never forget – the first rule of the conned is: “never let a good lie die”

N-GA

November 2nd, 2009
2:47 pm

BTW,

The biggest problem was the mortgage industry. The mortgage originators were paid for production…the more mortgages, the larger their paycheck. As a consequence, they sourced mortgages that were “sub-prime”, they altered financial data on the mortgage applications, and they approved mortgages that failed the credit worthiness test. Just look at Countrywide, the criminal who was CEO, and the bank (IndyMac) they created. It was as bad as the Madoff scam!

Cmon all you apologists….bring on some hard facts!

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
2:48 pm

I know a lot of folks who would love to snag a $30,000 home. They’re good, hardworking people who just need a break.

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
2:50 pm

It would be great if some of the homeless could be put in these homes.

DoggoneGA

November 2nd, 2009
2:50 pm

“Cmon all you apologists….bring on some hard facts!”

You’re not holding your breath, are you? Trust me, it’s all been debunked over and over and over. It just never penetrates because if it did they might have to quit parroting that good lie.

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
2:53 pm

I’m sure there are some wealthy people who would help out, and get some of these down on their luck folks into a home.

Taxpayer

November 2nd, 2009
2:55 pm

Well, if they had not run Marta out to the suburbs, none of this would have happened. :roll:

Bosch

November 2nd, 2009
2:55 pm

I too am agogged at those idiots who still blame the CRA for the mortgage collapse.

This weekend while chauffeuring the kiddos around to various Halloween festivities, I got lost in a completely weird “subdivision” which wasn’t a subdivision at all. It had roads and streetlights, but no houses. The lots were all over grown and the few houses in the subdivision were nice enough, but I thought to myself how their value must have plummeted because they sit in an unfinished neighborhood. I’m sure when they bought their houses or had them built they were promised the subdivision would be full, but now these few unfortunate people sit in poorly constructed houses in a really weird neighborhood, wonder what that did to their home values- although I have to admit, the name of the subdivision was pretty – something with a tree name and a water feature: Oak Creek, or was it Hickory Lake, or Willow Stream – can’t remember, oh well.

AmVet

November 2nd, 2009
2:56 pm

I wonder how long before one of the compassionate conservatives notes that a lot of Those People now live in Henry and Gwinnett.

The conned will never wake up to the fact that almost ALL of us got screwed.

To the tune of $3TRILLION that didn’t exist. That’s 3,000 stacks of a million dollars.

They can’t tell you by whom. Nor how they did it. Not even where it went. And they don’t want to know. So they watch their portfolios and hope beyond hope that the same criminals on Wall Street don’t f&ck them again.

Man it’s gotta be dark up there…

Taxpayer

November 2nd, 2009
2:57 pm

I suppose the 17 percenters are not capable of comprehending what companies like Goldman Sachs did. I will give them a little hint. It had nothing to do with CRA.

Joey

November 2nd, 2009
2:59 pm

N-GA:
I appreciate the education you are giving some of us.
Please, tell us more.
I would like to know the truth about Freddie and Fannie.

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
2:59 pm

Uh-oh, some of ‘those’ people living in Henry and Gwinnett…

I smell a tea party coming on.

Shananeeeeee Fananeeeeeee

November 2nd, 2009
2:59 pm

Obama and his team will shake up the numbers and next month it will look like the foreclosures are way down in Henry and Gwinett. Change in 2010 and 2012, Change we are looking forward to.

Normal

November 2nd, 2009
3:01 pm

Does Freddie and Fannie have anything to do with the CRA? Inquiring minds want to know…

Mrs. Godzilla

November 2nd, 2009
3:01 pm

Shananeeeeee Fananeeeeeee …..I think there’s another sign here…..

USinUK

November 2nd, 2009
3:01 pm

Taxpayer

November 2nd, 2009
3:01 pm

“45 percent of all repossessed homes sold by banks in Fulton County were “dumped” for less than $30,000″

Well, we got laws against dumping up here in these parts and stiff penalties too. So, don’t even try it.

Normal

November 2nd, 2009
3:03 pm

I cannot tell a lie, Opie. I put that letter underneath that trash…

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
3:03 pm

Tea partiers on standby! Signs aloft! Guns at the ready!

Now waddle on down the street.

Kamchak

November 2nd, 2009
3:04 pm

All it took was the CRA, Barney Frank, total collapse of the economy, and now we can put babymamas in those cheap homes.

Ah yes, the evil CRA, Fannie and Freddie. I’ll keep posting this until you actually read it.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.

[...]

Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble.

During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.

[...]

What’s more, only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don’t, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.

These private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren’t subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.

Angry Black Man

November 2nd, 2009
3:04 pm

AmV

I live in Henry Co. It has nothing to do with “Those People”. Henry is still unbridled Republican territory with $200-$300k housing subdivisions. A few years ago it was one of the 10 fastest growing counties in the country. If you don’t have the infrastructure and employment to handle that, you can’t sustain that growth forever. If you’re in the market, there’s homes galore here. I saw a 6 bedroom 4 bath a while back in Eagle’s Landing Gated Community for around $215k. My house lost value too, but I don’t plan on going anywhere. At least not yet.

Joey

November 2nd, 2009
3:04 pm

We don’t have to read it in the paper to know that all metro is affected. All we need do is look to the left and right as we drive around our communities.

I have no idea why Jay thinks Gwinnett and Henry and Forsyth residents are not aware that they or their neighbors are losing their homes. Maybe because he does not pay any attention to the sub-urban counties.

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
3:06 pm

Oh no! Not Forsyth too!

Tea partiers, you know the drill!

N.J.

November 2nd, 2009
3:07 pm

Most of these were the result of Adjustable rate PRIME mortages not subprimes. Everyone knows that the bubble in housing prices did not occur at the purchaser level, but at the highest levels in investment banking, which used its ability to pressure the housing market to make it appear that there was not enough “supply” to meet “demand” thus a rise in the cost of homes, the rise in the average rate of mortgages, and then the rise in the value of mortgage backed securities as investments, which provided monthly income for its owners. If the average mortgage payment in a bundled mortgage is 250 dollars owners of the securities get a check for 250 dollars a month. If its 2500 dollars, you get 2500 dollars a month. Which investment would you prefer? And if you had the power to manipulated which one you got, what would YOU do?

Bosch

November 2nd, 2009
3:07 pm

USinUK,

No, I didn’t. I’m sure his lack of memory has to do with the demons who have attached themselves to his brain cells and won’t let him remember those unpleasantries.

‘Cause ya’ know why? He’s evil. Pure evil.

Midori

November 2nd, 2009
3:07 pm

wow!!

who woulda thunk ALL THOSE POOR BLACKS AND HISPANICS WHO CAUSED THIS CRISIS live in Gwinnette and Hall Counties? :eyes:

Midori

November 2nd, 2009
3:08 pm

oops,

that should be: :roll:

Marsh

November 2nd, 2009
3:08 pm

N.J.,

Where have you been? We sure have missed your intellect today.

Bosch

November 2nd, 2009
3:09 pm

USinUK

November 2nd, 2009
3:09 pm

Kam -

and, lest we forget, even at its height, subprime lending was still less only 20% of all mortgages on the market.

the drivers of the housing crisis were the unregulated structured credit market, ratings agencies that were asleep at the switch, lending institutions that threw all prudential guidelines out the window because they knew they could get risky loans off their books and the bank regulators that didn’t do their job

joan’s “babymamas” are waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy down the list of culpable parties

USinUK

November 2nd, 2009
3:10 pm

bosch –

“‘Cause ya’ know why? He’s evil. Pure evil.”

you know, I’ve heard that somewhere … can’t recall where …

hope you and yours had a good Halloween … did any of your younguns dress as house-attacking-trees???

@@

November 2nd, 2009
3:13 pm

‘Ya mean to tell me that Geithner’s GoldMan is confiscating people’s homes and dumping on ‘em. Good thing GoldMan got out before the bubbleheads’ burst.

N.J.

November 2nd, 2009
3:13 pm

Florida went through that development thing 30 years ago. Developers would use their clout to prevent local legislatures from attaching “impact fees” to their construction which led to developments with 10,000 units being hooked into sewer and electrical systems that simply could not handle it. By the time that sewers were flooding every time it drizzled out, the development corporations had dissolved, and there was no one to hold responsible. So it was time to raise property taxes. In the long run passing the impact fees onto the people when they bought the homes would have been far cheaper than it ended up later, because the solutions to the problems could have been built in at the time of construction, rather than being dug up and finding a less efficient engineering fix 20 years later.

Angry Black Man

November 2nd, 2009
3:13 pm

U-n-U @ 3:09

You didn’t know. My subdivision’s name is “The Enclave of Baby-Mamas”, and we’re right next to the country club here in Henry Co. The cheapest home here was $270k. tee hee hee…

@@

November 2nd, 2009
3:14 pm

ABM and I are neighbors?

Kamchak

November 2nd, 2009
3:16 pm

USinUK

I’ve posted that McClatchy piece at least twice at Cynthia’s in response to Joan’s insistence that it’s Fannie, Freddie and the CRA’s fault. Maybe she doesn’t know how to click on the blue words. :roll:

Midori

November 2nd, 2009
3:17 pm

Hi Boshie :)

check this out (posted by a friend on another site illustrate just how crazy these 17 percenters are):

Fellow conservatives, answer me this. Why are liberals obsessed with reading books? What is it about books, which are just words on paper, that captivates liberals? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s these two things: 1) Liberals worship intellectuals. Liberals think the highest form of life is someone with lots …of letters after their name. Intellectuals, who think they are better than everybody else, have leftists worshipping them because their pseudo-scientific theories help liberals convince themselves the nonsense they spout is true. Intellectuals write books in which they attack basic rights, such as the right to be successful, or spread liberal lies like ‘climate change’. Liberals east it up, simply because the person who wrote the book has several degrees. Getting degrees is easy – all you have to do is read a lot of books. But liberals think it’s the pinnacle of humanity to be an academic elitist. So when intellectuals write books liberals are compelled to buy them, read them and regurgitate the rubbish inside as ‘fact’ to back up their ridiculous claims. 2) Liberals can’t think for themselves So instead, they use books as their way of forming whatever twisted ideas they have. Rather than form their opinions by common sense, reason and life experience, liberals just read a book and use whatever it says as their opinion. Without books, liberals would have to actually think for themselves. And if they thought rationally, they would realise how stupid their beliefs are. So rather than risk the consequences of independent thought, liberals just read books and pretend they thought of it themselves. There is only one book worth getting guidance from. It’s called the Bible, and it’s not just a book – it’s the Word of God. Books are nothing but trouble. I’m sure you all agree.

moral of the story?

BOOKS ARE EVIL!! EVIL, I TELLS YA!!!

AND BECAUSE LIBERALS READ THEM, THEY ARE EVIL TOO!!!

:lol:

USinUK

November 2nd, 2009
3:18 pm

ABM –

hahaha … and you’re the macdaddy in the middle of it all ;-)