Foreclosure of residential houses worsens in Grand Traverse County

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Foreclosure for sale of residential houses has worsened in Grand Traverse County. On Bluejay Road it is a common sight to see overgrown gardens, hacked down trees and houses ripped of all metal fittings, plumbing and wiring. The residents remain helpless onlookers as the owners who once helped to build up this tightly knit neighbourhood of well cared for houses surrender their hearth and homes to foreclosure.

One of the neighbours lamented, “They were literally tearing the house down, stripping it of any value before their six-month redemption period was over. We couldn’t even get a hold of somebody who cared because (the mortgage) had changed hands so many times.”

Northern Michigan had been for a long time fending off the menace but finally it could no longer withstand the pressure. The newspapers are full of foreclosure notices and the neighbours are cringing as the units surrounding them are one by one getting sucked into the foreclosure ring. It is leading the fall in the value of their own properties.

The neighbours on Bluejay road found there was little to be done as trees were felled and other items disappeared. They contacted the city authorities, the police, banks and the county prosecutor but nothing produced any abiding result. Alan Schneider the Grand Traverse County Prosecutor said, “The problem was the (lender) wasn’t interested in pursuing criminal charges. It might qualify as common law mortgage fraud, but it has to be on the complaint of the bank, not some third party.”

The supervisor of East Bay Township Glen Lile reacting to the situation said, “I was shocked when I saw it, but there’s nothing the township can do,” he said. “I think it’s a problem every township faces.”
Realtor Murray commented that the estate on 135 Bluejay was one of the worst he had seen but this was not unusual for him. The month of May saw the third highest number of foreclosures in a month. Across the country there were more than 300,000 foreclosures according to RealtyTrac. In May 2009 Michigan came to rank 6th in USA in number of foreclosure filings.

Grand Traverse County seems to be heading for another record breaking year. On June 26th, 204 properties were noted for foreclosure marking an increase of 350% from 2005. Peggy Haines the register of deeds for the county bemoaned, “It used to be adjustable rate mortgages, but now I think a lot of people are just walking from them because they can’t sell them, they have lost some income, and they just want to get out from under it.”

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