A. The value is way too low. 320k gets you a condo, not a 3 story house. That house should be over 500k even in this market.

B. Why did they take out a 2nd loan? What happened to that money?

C. How much money did they put down when they bought the house? Sounds like they didn't have a lot of equity to begin with.

D. Do a short sale and start over if you can't handle it.

Something doesn't add up and this story has a lot of holes. I fell bad for the couple but I'm sure a lot of people lost equity (including myself) but I wasn't taking out 2nd loans.

If they did 100% financing on the fist and they now owe 580k that means that they took out a 260k 2nd mortgage. Where did that money go????

It is way low. We were looking at row houses in that area just this summer and the $580,000 they owe is just about what they were going for (not asking, ask was generally higher than that).

Now this one may be in a worse place/worse shape but no way is a 3 story brick row house on 4th going for less than $500. If I could have gotten one for $320 I would have been the happiest guy in JC.

Agree, that seems really low.

Story is still sad that many families are going thru tough times. We need to live within our means so we don't jeopardize the roof over our heads.

$320,000 sounds low for the current value of a three story brick house downtown.

Robin.

Jersey City family feels the pain of a seemingly endless foreclosure process

Published: Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 3:03 AM
By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal


Gabby Creery is on the verge of foreclosure from her Downtown Jersey City home she's lived in for nine years.

Gabby Creery has been in foreclosure limbo since last fall.
Nine years ago, Creery, 36, moved into a three-story brick home on Fourth Street in Downtown Jersey City with her husband and their two sets of twins.

They purchased the house for around $300,000, and watched the value rise to $650,000 during the height of the housing bubble, she said.

?It was always tight, and we were always a little house poor,? Creery said during an interview at a Downtown coffee shop. ?(But) we could afford it.?

But then her husband, who worked for a Japanese banking firm, lost his job at the end of 2007. They both worked odd jobs, but fell behind on mortgage payments.

Having taken out a second loan when the home?s value was high, the couple now owes about $580,000 on the property, nearly double its $320,000 worth.

They received foreclosure papers last fall. Nearly one year later, they?re still fighting to stay in the house.
?You keep thinking that this is a bump in the road,? said Creery. ?It?s denial.?

Creery?s story is not uncommon.

Millions of homeowners across the nation are in the same limbo, with the staggering number of foreclosures overwhelming banks, delaying the inevitable foreclosure process and possibly stalling the economic recovery, according to real estate experts.

Foreclosure monitor RealtyTrac has seen numbers that indicate an ?artificial drop? in foreclosure activity that?s likely the result of delays in foreclosure processing, not because of an improved housing market, said spokesman Daren Blomquist.

Creery?s house is a member of the ?shadow inventory,? which includes properties that are in the midst of a foreclosure process that seems to have no end, he said.
The best-case scenario, according to Blomquist, is the economy improves, the unemployment rate decreases and struggling homeowners are able to ?pull themselves out of the pit.?

But some of these homeowners ?are just going to fall into foreclosure eventually,? he said. ?The inevitable is being delayed.?

The Garden State has weathered the foreclosure crisis far better than other states.

In New Jersey, one in every 2,971 housing units received a foreclosure filing in June 2011, compared to Nevada, the hardest hit state, where the rate was one in every 114 units, according to RealtyTrac.

A housing-counseling agency funded by federal grants, the Hudson County Housing Resource Center, located at 574 Newark Ave. in Jersey City, helps shepherd low- and moderate-income homeowners through the often-bewildering foreclosure process.

Currently, the agency will speak to up to 10 homeowners in one week, said HRC director Rosa Rooney.

Unemployment is the reason many of the homeowners are having problems staying in their homes, according to Rooney. Her clients are ?legitimate hard-working people? who depend on two incomes, she said.

When one or both are lost, foreclosure is the result, said Rooney.

?It would be much better if people came immediately, when they?re about to get in trouble or start to fall behind,? she said. ?There are even programs for people that are current but can see what?s coming down the pike.?

Creery blogs about her life in foreclosure, partly to help others who feel shame than they are in the same predicament.

Though her husband is fighting to keep the house, she?d prefer to ?move out and move on,? she said.
?I would love to rent again,? Creery said.