Vol. 71/No. 34      September 17, 2007

Seventeen percent of “subprime” mortgage borrowers in this state are behind in payments. Over the past several years this category of home loans surged in popularity. Thousands of workers who previously didn’t qualify for home mortgages were sold these high-interest loans.

In Georgia, when someone falls behind in mortgage payments their home can be sold on the courthouse steps in as little as 37 days after the lender starts foreclosure proceedings. Only two other states, Texas and Tennessee, have similar laws. A short stint of unemployment or a high medical expense is enough to make many workers lose their homes.

In July, foreclosure filings in Georgia were up 75 percent from the month before. Georgia’s foreclosure filing rate is one for every 299 households, more than twice the national average.

Between 2000 and 2006, home foreclosures jumped 212 percent in Fulton County and 153 percent in DeKalb County, two of the major counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area. In nearby Henry County, home foreclosures are up 327 percent.

Many Georgians try to stave off home foreclosures by filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Most are unable to keep up with the court-ordered payment plans and lose their homes in the end. Georgia leads the United States in Chapter 13 filings.

Atlanta-based HomeBanc announced in August that it will stop making mortgage loans. The lending agency then laid off around 1,000 employees and declared bankruptcy, joining a growing list of other failing national mortgage lenders.

Meanwhile, 9,600 workers living in public housing in the Atlanta area are threatened with eviction. More than 3,200 units of permanently subsidized housing are scheduled for demolition, according to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. The group reports that between 48,000 and 68,000 people in the Atlanta area were homeless at some point in 2006.

Atlanta ranks seventh in the country in percentage of families that pay more than half their income for rent, according to the National Housing Conference in Washington.

The surge in evictions includes many working people who rent their homes. On July 26, Carlos Rodriguez, 27, died after sheriff’s deputies in Gwinnett County used a Taser against him. The cops had gone to his apartment complex to evict someone else living there.

In January, another man in Gwinnett county killed himself in a standoff with a SWAT team after deputies tried to serve him eviction papers at his home.

Renters make up 80 percent of the 500 evictions per month in that county.
 
 
Related articles:
1.1 million in U.S. face home foreclosure
Behind deflating housing bubble  
 
 
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