Tagged: Foreclosure

The mayor of Greensboro is trying to avoid having his home foreclosed on while paying down his debts to the IRS.

Mayor Robbie Perkins has been in commercial real estate for 32 years. He says an industry depression combined with a split from his wife has left him in a bad financial circumstance. The IRS put a lien on his Greensboro home early this year in an effort to get him to pay some of the $86,000 he owed in federal taxes.

There are neighborhoods in many urban areas across the country with empty, dilapidated houses. Chances are the down economy got the best of the owner resulting in foreclosure.  But in thousands of cases foreclosures have gone wrong like at a house on East Geer (gear) Street in Durham.   For years no one took responsibility for the defaulted mortgage.  That means, the foreclosure was not completed, the structure could not be sold, resulting in blight.  It’s called a “bank walk away.”

The down economy has brought with it a lot of foreclosed properties. The North Carolina Bankers Association has developed a website to help get this real estate sold. 

Leoneda Inge:  The new website is called REO Deed Wagon dot com. REOs are real estate owned properties owned by the lender, in this case, a bank.  Brandon Wright is a spokesman for the North Carolina Bankers Association.  He says their goal is to have as many as two thousand properties listed by the end of the year.

There is still a long way to go to make up for all the home foreclosures that besieged the country during the past five years.  But there is one home delivery model that has beaten the odds.  Reports show Community Land Trusts across the United States continue to have substantially lower delinquency and foreclosure rates than home owners in the conventional market.  A national gathering of community development leaders met in Durham this week to take a closer look at Community Land Trusts.