Special Report
N
PAST DUE
American Nightmare
Foreclosure epidemic strikes the Jewish community, too.
Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News
T
he market stinks!"
That's how a Jewish real estate
agent who has been selling
homes in the Detroit area Jewish commu-
nity for more than 20 years describes the
current real estate market. He works for a
well-known realty firm and prefers not to
be identified.
"It seems that it takes an eternity to sell
a home now," he said. "Many sellers are
unrealistic about the sales price, and just
waste time trying to get a higher amount."
On the other end of the spectrum, the
salesman feels sorry for homeowners who
are going through the home foreclosure pro-
cess."The Jewish people are not escaping the
foreclosure epidemic;' he declared. "There are
an awful lot of them around here.'
Statistics bear him out on foreclosures.
Mortgages were foreclosed on one out of
every 21 households in the Detroit metro-
politan area last year — the highest ratio
of foreclosures to households in the nation
— and Jews appear to be feeling the fore-
closure pinch just like everyone else.
Struck by the depressed automotive
industry and poor economic conditions
in general, the Detroit area had 40,219
foreclosures in 2006 — 4,855 in Oakland
County alone, according to the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics and Realty/Trac, a real
estate services firm. That's a whopping 579
percent increase in the county since 1998,
when there were only 715 foreclosures.
Nationally, the 2006 foreclosure rate was
one out of every 92 households, up about
30 percent over 2005.
Because of privacy laws, real estate
agents and bank officials decline to
provide names of homeowners caught
in the foreclosure process. One Internet
advertiser, Low Price Houses, says there
are good deals now available on close to
12,000 homes in the Detroit area because
the homeowner is in bankruptcy.
"The American Dream is Within Reach','
the company touts to prospective home-
buyers. Another real estate source boasts
that many foreclosed homes are available
for as little as $25,000, even some with no
money down.
Slipping Away
The "American dream" has become a
nightmare for many.
"There are a lot of tragic cases out there
— people losing homes because they
lost their jobs, or who are selling because
they're going through a divorce or illness,"
said Marshall Mandell, an associate broker
with Remax Classic Realty in Farmington
Hills. He's a property management special-
ist for banks and mortgage companies,
like Comerica, Chase and Countrywide
banks, which often must foreclose on their
borrowers.
"I've handled literally hundreds of fore-
closures around here in the past few years,
most of them in the city of Detroit, but a
fair share of them in the northern suburbs."
Mandell hires independent contrac-
tors to fix up the foreclosed homes and
get them ready for other buyers, and even
helps people relocate.
"Contrary to general belief, the owner
isn't thrown out on the street right away;
it sometimes takes up to a year before a
person can be evicted;' he said. "But I've
been handling foreclosures in Bloomfield
Hills, Birmingham, West Bloomfield,
Farmington Hills and other suburbs."
Perry Ohren, chief program officer
for Jewish Family Service (JFS) in West
Bloomfield, said many homeowners "wait
until the last minute to come in here ask-
ing for financial assistance to help save
their homes."
"Apparently, they just feel shame and
guilt, and come here when there's no
place else to turn to — like we're the
court of last resort;' he said. "Foreclosures
have increased dramatically in the last
few years."
JFS is a social service agency funded
by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit, federal grants and donations that
provides counseling and emergency finan-
cial assistance, mainly for Jewish people,
who usually have exhausted other options.
JVS, the Southfield-based agency that
helps many people get jobs, even has
some counselors trained specifically in
mortgage foreclosure prevention.
"Some desperate people — even Jewish
parents in their 40s and 50s — are using
their children's college tuition funds to
make their mortgage payments to try
to prevent foreclosure," said CEO and
President Barbara Nurenberg."The main
thing the foreclosure specialist tells them is
that when they lose their jobs, contact the
mortgage company immediately to discuss
the situation, not wait until they're far in
arrears on their mortgage payments."
JVS often sees parents and children from
the same family at the same time, looking
for jobs and education opportunities.
"Our 'Women to Work' program is usu-
ally filled with women getting trained for
American Nightmare on page 16
June 21 2007
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