Rising Brooklyn Foreclosures Hitting Up-And-Coming Areas Hardest
April 4, 2008
Metro reports today that rising foreclosures in Brooklyn are putting the brakes on up-and-coming neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York and Brownsville. These neighborhoods are among the top 10 Brooklyn areas with foreclosures, according to a 2006 list from NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.
The Center found foreclosure proceedings had started for 885 Bed-Stuy homes last year, up from 422 in 2004. A new report put out by Corcoran shows average home prices in the area are dropping rapidly, declining 10 percent over the last three months alone.
It’s useful to remember, however, that these are the neighborhoods through which most people were afraid to drive in the 1970’s and 1980’s. These areas were crime-ridden, boarded-up havens for crime and drugs - the places hit hardest by the crack epidemic. So though the real estate values have declined, it’s still better to have a stable homeowner base in place to care for the neighborhood.
One boarded-up house turns into five turns into a whole block of dead homes. Lenders and lawmakers need to realize that urban blight is not too far away, and that people should be given the chance to save their homes.
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