Subprime foreclosures hit NYC

From the New York Post:

NYC ‘DEBT’ RECKONING

A silent crisis is ripping through many city neighborhoods as more and more homeowners are unable to pay down their subprime mortgage loans.

In Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, one-fifth of subprime mortgages were more than 60 days in arrears as of April – and 10 percent of all subprime loans were in foreclosure, according to data provided to The Post by First Data LoanPerformance, a mortgage-tracking firm.

Other neighborhoods taking big subprime-foreclosure hits are East New York in Brooklyn; the Arverne section of the Rockaways and parts of Jamaica, Queens; Tottenville on Staten Island; and the Olinville and Bronxdale sections of The Bronx.

And the number of subprime loans in arrears and foreclosed has risen steadily all across the city over the last year, the data shows.

In one part of Bed-Stuy, the percentage of subprime loans 60 days or more in arrears rose from 15 percent in June 2006 to 23 percent in April of this year.

Thousands of New Yorkers’ homes are endangered by subprime loans, which can carry variable interest charges of more than 10 percent.

Nobody is sure how the subprime crisis will affect the city’s homeownership rate, which, at 33.1 percent in 2005, was about half the national rate, according to New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

“New York’s real-estate market is fairly hot, and buildings are unlikely to sit vacant. There’s some skepticism as to whether the city is going to take a hit, or whether it’s going to be localized,” said the center’s Jenny Schuetz.

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2 Responses to Subprime foreclosures hit NYC

  1. looking in ny says:

    ‘There’s some skepticism as to whether the city is going to take a hit, or whether it’s going to be localized,” said the center’s Jenny Schuetz.’

    What is meant by ‘localized’ – all the four boroughs?
    Pretty shallow analysis considering where it’s coming from.

    I see vacant homes wherever I travel though NYC, sitting unsold for months.
    Then there’s the shadow market – coops and condos desperate to rent since they aren’t selling.

    And then there are people unable to afford Manhattan rents who are piling together in ever larger numbers to be able to split rent into what they can afford. Here’s a story about students who were compelled to live out of office space –

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/nyregion/10rent.html?ex=1182312000&en=9c2c98f0675894e9&ei=5070

  2. otis wildflower says:

    Here’s a story about students who were compelled to live out of office space

    Isn’t that how lofts started in Soho? Squatters in abandoned industrial space, whose previous tenants/owners fled the high costs and congestion of NYC.

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