USA urban foreclosures provide opportunity for Greening of America

Seattle, Houston, Atlanta and Chicago; Rising foreclosure risks

Major US cities are experiencing a forsclosure crisis in 2011, and this presents a window of opportunity for urban energy efficiency and clean energy technologies. According to Alex Veiga's Associated Press report in the Toronto Star today:

In Seattle, Houston, Chicago and Atlanta, a growing number of homeowners are falling behind on mortgage payments and finding themselves on the receiving end of foreclosure warnings. Others have already seen their homes repossessed by lenders.

All told, foreclosure activity jumped in 149 of the country’s 206 largest metropolitan areas last year, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

The firm tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions — warnings that can lead up to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure. Job loss, rather than time-bomb mortgages resetting to higher payments, has become the main driver behind rising foreclosures.

“We’ve actually had a sea change in what’s causing foreclosures, from the overheated home prices and bad loans to a second wave of foreclosures actually caused by unemployment and economic displacement,” says Rick Sharga, a senior vice-president at RealtyTrac.

The Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area in Texas saw its foreclosure rate jump 26 per cent from 2009, the largest increase among the top 20 biggest metro areas, the firm said.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, in Washington State, ranked second with an increase of nearly 23 per cent, while the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta metro area in Georgia was third with a 21 per cent bump.

In the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metropolitan area of Illinois, foreclosure activity rose 16 per cent, while home repossessions climbed nearly 20 per cent, RealtyTrac said.

“As the economy and unemployment improve, you’ll see those markets recover fairly quickly, whereas you’re still going to have a bit of a hangover in places like California, Florida and Nevada,” Sharga said.

Those states, and Arizona, remain the country’s foreclosure hotbeds, accounting for 19 of the top 20 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates in 2010.


The worst may be behind us, but we're not out of the woods yet. Instead of packaging these homes by the dozen and selling them to the same realtors who helped get us into this mess, innovative banks should hook up with local retrofitters to "green" these homes before returning them to the real estate market.

Full AP article about Rampant foreclosures in big USA cities