High foreclosures, slow home sales

County’s high number of foreclosures seen as threat to local economy

Christopher AndersonÚThe Gazette Homeowner Barbara Taha of Oxon Hill speaks at a news conference Monday about how rising mortgage costs are making it difficult for residents to keep up with payments. The conference was organized by the Rainbow Push Coalition, politicians and homeowner advocates.

At a rally in Greenbelt Monday, Weaver joined a chorus of national and county leaders who are advising people who may have trouble making mortgage payments to seek help.

The rally followed President Bush’s announcement last week of a national hot line to connect homeowners with finance counselors.

Based on recent figures, Prince George’s residents may have more need of finance help than most. According to reports from the state’s Housing Preservation Task Force report and RealtyTrac released in the last two weeks, there were from 1,100 to 1,300 homes in some stage of foreclosure in the county this year. That’s about 30 percent of the roughly 5,000 foreclosures in Maryland in 2007.

‘‘Prince George’s is number one in the state,” said Steven Smith, a spokesman for Rainbow Push Coalition, one of several national groups calling for lenders to freeze interest rate changes over the next few years. ‘‘And [Prince George’s] is one of the most affluent African-American communities.”

Foreclosures are just one part of the housing slump. According to the latest numbers from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which tracks residential sales, Prince George’s home sales have continued a downward trend that started in late 2005.

According to numbers released Monday, just 418 houses were sold in the county in November, down nearly 60 percent from November 2006.

Those homes that did sell went for an average of about $314,577 — down 8.4 percent from the year before — and took an average of 103 days to sell, nearly double from the year before.

The slow home sales represent the continued fallout from the sub-prime mortgage crisis, which started affecting the economy last year, officials said.

It’s a situation financial consultant Robert Brown has watched daily in Prince George’s.

Back in 2004 and 2005, when the residential market was peaking, Brown said he helped homeowners who were just beginning to struggle.

‘‘It was mostly one-time things, like losing a job. They were people who, while they weren’t behind yet, thought they would be soon,” said Brown, who ran the business that was then called Distressed Homeowners. ‘‘But now it’s definitely gotten a lot worse.”

In the last year, the former Hyattsville businessman said he gets calls from people who are several months behind on their mortgages. In an acknowledgement of the recent downturn, Brown changed his company’s name to Keep My Home Today.

‘‘There’s a need to provide greater regulatory practices,” Weaver said. ‘‘A lot of people, they thought they were signing on for one type of mortgage.”

In the new Bush initiative, lenders have agreed to be more aggressive in refinancing mortgage loans for struggling homeowners, or switching buyers to stable-rate mortgages financed through the Federal Housing Administration.

In some select cases, lenders may even agree to freeze interest rates for struggling borrowers.

In addition to offering connections with financing counselors, county housing officials are planning to hold seminars in the coming months to educate homeowners.