Unwelcome neighbor: As foreclosures move to more affluent areas,
many grow wary
Susan Todd reported in the Star-Ledger on Sunday that “in a part of Hunterdon County suburbia where the colonials are oversized, the lawns are wide and cul-de-sacs are plentiful, the nation’s mortgage crisis is creating something rare: blight.” To read the full article entitled – Unwelcome neighbor: As foreclosures move to more affluent areas, many grow wary – click here.
Once associated mostly with poor neighborhoods, foreclosed properties are turning up in the suburbs of Hunterdon County and the developments of large single-family houses that cover parts of Warren County. Million-dollar homes and Tudor-styled McMansions are slipping into foreclosure in Monmouth and Middlesex counties.
In communities where houses were selling for $500,000 a few years ago, foreclosures are bringing some of the most anguishing issues of the time — a tanking housing market, a paralyzing credit crisis, bankruptcies — to the doorsteps of residents who will be hurt as once elegant homes morph into eyesores.
Ms. Todd quotes Richard Hughes, the dean of the Bloustein School of Planning and Policy at Rutgers University, who says: New Jersey is among the states hardest hit by the subprime mortgage crisis and the foreclosures resulting from what Hughes described as “an undisciplined lending binge.” Foreclosures in NJ in August were up 49 percent from last year.
Governor Corzine took some over due steps to address this crisis last week. But it may well need more than what he offered or what Washington has placed on the table.
Beyond money it may take a change in how we communicate and relate to each other. It is not just the poor who suffer but also the wealthy. It is not only a problem in Rartian but also in Rhaway and ever other community in NJ. This is a crisis that affects all of us. It is only when we come to understand that this is not our neighbors problem can we begin to help ourselves and our neighbors.
