Lake & City Homes is pleased to announce a new tool for daily updates of Madison WI distressed property, including all Madison short sales, foreclosures and REOs (bank-owned properties). Although the foreclosure rate in Wisconsin is considerably lower than states such as FL, NV, MI, OH, IL, and CA, Wisconsin still has a ready supply of distressed properties for those looking to pick up a good deal. According to RealtyTrac, the foreclosure rate for Madison is 8,749 in the nation. There were 103 foreclosure filings in Madison for the month of January 2009. There are currently 190 foreclosures in Dane County.
Although Wisconsin's foreclosure rate is rising, it is considerably lower than other states due to far fewer sub-prime and Alt-A loans being made to consumers in recent years. CA, NV, AR, and FL saw such an aggressive increase in property values that unless lenders offered exotic programs such as 100% financing and option ARMs there was no way many people could afford to make the payments on these homes. So many lenders got involved in risky loans hoping to make these homes more affordable (or hoping to make a buck). Then prices came tumbling down in the hotter real estate markets, layoffs starting increasing in states impacted by the troubled auto industry, and suddenly consumers couldn't afford the payments on their homes nor could they sell their properties for more than they paid.
"Lenders made some of the same mistakes that consumers made, automatically assuming property values would always continue to go up", says Rick McKinley, loan officer at the U.W. Credit Union. "And many lenders got caught off guard when the market started to decline. Either they didn't get out of the business in time or consumers became overextended and could not repay their exotic loans." McKinley is quick to point out that the U.W. Credit Union has never participated in option ARM lending. "They never should have gotten into option ARMs in the first place." Option ARMs are adjustable rate mortgages where consumers had the option to pay less than the amount of interest they owe and instead have that interest added to the principle each month. Then, as the principle balance of these loans was increasing, property values suddenly started decreasing. As a result, the balance of these loans increased exponentially over time and consumers couldn't pay back what they owed when they tried exit the market.
For the hottest property deals in Dane County and South Central WI, please visit our short sales page, our foreclosures page, or our REO/Bank-Owned page. To view all distressed property in the city of Madison WI, please visit Madison's Hot Buys! All prices and listings are updated daily so be sure to check back often!
For more information about buying and selling distressed property, please call Jolenta at (563) BUY-SOLDÂ (563-289-7653).
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Posted by Jolenta Averill on
Hi all, Just a comment and a Thank You! Jolenta for the incredible amount of information and interesting snippets related to the Madison WI and Dane County that you have on the Lake and City Homes website, and especially cool stuff in the blog! I have entered your site in my favorites for easy access. Tuesday I did some work for a client in Shorewood Hills. I wanted a few bits of history on the area, since I was contracted to be with the homeowner for the entire morning. Instead of using Google like I have in the past, I clicked on Lake and City Homes in my favorites, went to Shorewood Hills neighborhood, and in less than two minutes I had a bucketload "fun filled facts" about Shorewood Hills! Works for me! Thanks again, Jolenta.
Posted by Dave on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 11:34pmLeave A Comment