Ohio's Foreclosure Rate: The Crisis Eases A Bit

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Nationally, the U.S. foreclosure rate jumped 48% from May 2007. RealtyTrac says today that Ohio's foreclosure rate fell last month from levels a year ago: "Foreclosure filings were reported on 12,295 Ohio properties in May, the fifth biggest state total despite a nearly 7% decrease from May 2007. With one in every 410 households receiving a foreclosure filing, Ohio's foreclosure rate ranked No. 9 among the states and was above the national average." And none of Ohio's metro areas were in the nation's Top 20 distressed markets.

While Ohio was dipping, some of the foreclosure numbers from other states were staggering. Nevada up 72% from last May; California up 81%, and Arizona up 119%. Michigan was suffering worse than Ohio: "Michigan foreclosure activity in May increased nearly 25% from the previous month, helping the state's foreclosure rate to jump to fifth highest among the states after ranking No. 9 (the spot Ohio now holds) the previous month. One in every 353 Michigan households received a foreclosure filing in May."

Hillary Clinton's Message To Ohio: USA Needs 90-Day Foreclosure Freeze

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton favors a 90-day freeze on mortgage foreclosures, a position that could play well in Ohio where thousands of homeowners are in default. Clinton contends federal regulators have given a pass to abusive subprime lenders. She is supporting a five-year moratorium on interest rate increases.

Ohio has one of the nation's highest foreclosure rates, and courthouses from Cleveland to Cincinnati are flooded with legal actions brought by banks and lenders against homeowners who can't pay their debts. The foreclosures have devastated neighborhoods by pushing home prices down, creating a glut, and often leaving local governments on the hook for unpaid property taxes and nuisance empty or abandoned buildings.

Clinton has been promising a freeze on foreclosures and interest rates, and reiterated her position last weekend at a Baptist convention in Atlanta. She will be speaking a lot about the foreclosure crisis in Ohio ahead of the March 4 Demcoratic primary. Here's what she said last weekend:

"When I say solutions I mean fixing this housing crisis because a house is more than just your greatest source of wealth. It's the center of your family, it's where you make memories and develop relationships. No one should take that away from you because of the subprime abusive practices that so many mortgage lenders engage in without any supervision or oversight from the federal government. We've got to have a moratorium on home foreclosures for 90 days so we can help people stay in their homes. And let's freeze those interest rates so they don't keep going up and forcing more and more people into debt, into foreclosure."

New Policy Matters Ohio Report: Foreclosures Soaring Even In Booming Delaware County

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- The economic boom that has made Delaware County the state's fastest growing county clearly has hit a bump. Foreclosures there are rising faster than anywhere else in the state, a new report shows. It means that some people in the waves of Ohioans who settled into Delaware County's stocks of new homes can't pay their mortgages. Suburban sprawl is taking a terrible toll on families whose paychecks can't stretch to cover the cost of dream homes standing where soybeans and cornfields once flourished in Central Ohio's shrunken farm belt.

Sadly, the human costs of overbuilding, overselling and easy credit are now being felt in suburbia as well as inner cities and small towns. The data was compiled by Zach Schiller of Policy Matters Ohio, and it speaks in numbers, not shattered lives when Simon Legree is on the doorstep saying pay me the money.

[UPDATE: Check out Plunderbund for a first-hand account from ground zero in Delaware County. It is an excellent piece of work. Add Eric's Plunderbund file to Zach's digging through the foreclosure records, and a textured picture emerges. How can the old media compete?]

"Ohio foreclosure filings jumped sharply in 2006, Policy Matters Ohio reported in a study released today. Overall, according to data reported to the Ohio Supreme Court by common pleas court judges across the state, there were 79,072 new foreclosure filings, an increase of more than 15,000 or 23.6 percent from 2005. The latest numbers indicate that Ohio’s foreclosure crisis, already severe, worsened substantially in 2006.

"The gain in filings represents the largest absolute gain in recent history and the largest relative gain since 2002, according to the study, Foreclosure Growth in Ohio 2007. It comes after three years of smaller increases. Filings grew by double-digit rates in 68 of Ohio’s 88 counties in 2006, and statewide, they have nearly quintupled since 1995.

"Cuyahoga County again led the state in foreclosure filings per person, followed by Montgomery and Summit counties. Fast-growing Delaware County led the state in foreclosure-filing growth between 2005 and 2006, as filings soared nearly 50 percent. Since Franklin and Pickaway counties also showed among the fastest growth in filings last year, three of the top ten counties with the highest growth were in the Columbus area.

"Filings grew somewhat faster in urban counties than in the state as a whole, and the ten most populated counties dominate the list of those with the most filings per person. However, during 2006, 78 of Ohio’s 88 counties saw an increase in the number of filings. The number of filings grew by 20 percent or more in 46 counties.

“'Foreclosures have become a pervasive problem in Ohio,' said Zach Schiller, Policy Matters research director and author of the report. 'Additional steps should be taken to provide relief to borrowers harmed by abusive lending practices and to bolster protection for home buyers.'

"Foreclosure filings at least doubled in all but two of Ohio’s counties over the past 11 years; in 82 counties, the number at least tripled, and in 70, it quadrupled.

"Foreclosure filing data does not provide a complete picture of foreclosures, as it includes non-mortgage filings and double filings. Not all filings lead to actual foreclosures, in which borrowers lose title to their property. On the other hand, filing statistics do not cover all cases in which homeowners lose their property, such as cases in which they give the title back to the lender and walk away from the home. Filing data is the best source of information to compare recent levels of foreclosure activity in the state and among Ohio’s counties.

"Policy Matters Ohio conducts a biennial survey on sheriff sales of foreclosed properties in Ohio. Surveys last year and previously indicate that while the number of families actually losing their homes to foreclosure is considerably lower than the number of filings, it has grown sharply and tens of thousands of Ohio households are losing their homes to foreclosure each year."

Policy Matters Ohio is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Cleveland and Columbus.