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Panelist calls for federal action on foreclosures at forum

A Beavercreek homeowner outlines his ordeal to keep his house.

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By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer Updated 11:04 AM Friday, August 21, 2009

DAYTON — The foreclosure crisis is cutting a mean swath through the region and relief doesn’t seem to be coming soon enough, a panel of experts said Thursday, Aug. 20, at a forum sponsored by the Dayton Daily News, WYSO Public Radio and ThinkTV.

Beavercreek resident Steve Pitman of Grange Hall Road told the panel his story of struggling with Wells Fargo Bank following missed mortgage payments and job loss.

He said his loan interest rate has jumped from 6.7 percent to 9 percent. Currently, he said, he’s lost all the equity in his home, but has found a new job.

Nevertheless, he can’t get the loan terms modified despite a multibillion federal program to encourage bank modifications.

Panelist Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said Pitman’s predicament is faced by “thousands of people in the state” who are pressured by mortgage servicers that operate virtually unregulated.

Montgomery County Commissioner Dan Foley, another of the three panelists, noted that foreclosure filings have leapt 300 percent in 11 years, with 5,000 filed in 2008 — half of all civil cases.

He said he supported a federal move to create an agency to regulate financial products.

“I don’t begrudge banks making a profit,” Foley said. “But they have created products that have hurt people in the community.”

So far, Washington leadership hasn’t delivered enough relief.

“Unless we get strong federal action,” Foley said, “we’ll continue to spin our wheels.”

An analysis by the Dayton Daily News indicates there are 36,000 vacant housing units in Montgomery County, vacancies driven largely by foreclosures. That number could rise to 48,000 by 2013.

Banks appear to be leaving some properties in legal limbo after foreclosure, Faith said.

They do this by obtaining a foreclosure ruling by the court, and then pulling the property from sheriff’s sale. The property remains technically owned by the defaulted homeowner. The bank has walked away, and sometimes, the owner has too.

The county or city is left to deal with a vacant, abandoned property, at taxpayer expense.

As for prying the region out of the foreclosure mess, suggestions ranged from getting cities and counties to aggressively enforce housing codes on banks that let properties deteriorate to tougher state laws on foreclosure filings.

Alfred Patterson, another panelist, who is community outreach coordinator for CountyCorp, said his agency is trying to help by contacting at-risk borrowers before they get into trouble.

CountyCorp can be reached at (937) 225-6328.

ThinkTV, the local cable Public Broadcast System outlet, will broadcast the 90-minute program hosted by Dayton Daily News Editor Kevin Riley in September on a date to be determined.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7407 or sbennish@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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