Foreclosures spread beyond Mass. urban areas

A recent study by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership has found that more home foreclosures are outside the state's urban areas than in them. Jennifer B. McKim writes for the Boston Globe, "The shift of foreclosures from cities to outlying areas indicates that the sluggish economy and a lingering high unemployment rate, not subprime loans and predatory lending, have become the main reasons people lose their homes."

In small towns, foreclosed homes are spread across the community which makes the problem less obvious. That means public policy makers must find regional solutions instead of focusing on particular streets, said Clark Ziegler, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. "In a lot of these more suburban and rural places, it is difficult to know what policy interventions will make a difference, short of seeing employment go up,"  Ziegler told McKim.

Massachusetts communities are trying to adjust to the situation. Ashburnham, for instance, is auctioning about 100 properties that were taken for unpaid taxes, even though the town recently approved a tax amnesty program. The town ranked third on the recent Massachusetts Housing Partnership list of municipalities with high rates of problem properties. A year earlier, it was 107th on the list. The value of municipal real estate in Ashburnham dropped from $696 million to $606 million in the last year, forcing officials to raise the property tax rate by about 6 percent, to $17.15 per thousand dollars of valuation, writes McKim. (Read more)