The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

August 12, 2007

Statistics show mortgage squeeze in area

Attorney advises early response to deepening debt

By Dan Nienaber

MANKATO — Reading quickly and in a monotone voice, Lt. Tim Mohr of the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Department was going through the motions Thursday.

It’s a scene repeated regularly, and far more often, in the lobby of Mankato’s Law Enforcement Center: Deputy reads legal notice on a home mortgage foreclosure, bank representative makes a single bid (almost always without a challenging bidder) and someone’s dream of home ownership officially comes to an end.

There were two mortgages foreclosed on Thursday. Three others were scheduled to go, said Mary Claes, Blue Earth County civil process coordinator. They were most likely canceled because the homeowners and banks were still trying to work out a way to avoid the process neither side wants to go through.

Christopher Kennedy, a Mankato attorney who advises people in financial trouble, said he’s seeing more people facing financial problems because they’ve gotten too deep in debt. They usually have several high credit card payments, other high-interest debt and, often, second mortgages that they’ve acquired in an attempt to ease the strain.

Sometimes that results in a recommendation to let the house go back to the bank, he said.

“We see situations where people come in and want to save the house, but we tell them they might be better off to go through foreclosure,” Kennedy said. “I see a lot of situations where it doesn’t make sense to keep the house, especially when there’s only one mortgage.”

The reason for that is second mortgages usually aren’t cleared by foreclosure, he added. That money is still owed by the debtor after the house is auctioned off.

Sheriff’s foreclosures in Blue Earth County alone jumped 77 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to statistics gathered by Minnesota’s HousingLink, an organization that works to ensure affordable housing in Minnesota cities. There were 57 foreclosures in 2005 compared to 101 in 2006 and that number is expected to go up again this year.

There were 42 sheriff’s sales in Blue Earth County in just the first quarter of 2007, which led HousingLink’s study to predict a total of 200 mortgage foreclosures for the year. If that number is accurate, it would mean nearly double the foreclosures in 2006 and between three and four times the foreclosures of 2005.

The numbers are similar in other counties around Mankato, except in Nicollet county where the information either wasn’t gathered by the Sheriff’s Department or provide to HousingLink. Judging from the numbers in all of the other counties, however, it’s safe to assume foreclosures are increasing in North Mankato, St. Peter and other areas of Nicollet County.

In Le Sueur County for example, HousingLink is predicting 110 sheriff’s sales in 2007. That would be 57 percent higher that the 70 sheriff’s sales in 2006 and nearly three times the 39 sheriff’s sales in 2005.

Kennedy advises people who think they are getting into a financial squeeze to seek advice from an attorney or financial advisor as soon as possible. There are bankruptcy options that can save the house and other ways to clear debt before it’s too late, he said.

A sign that financial problems are looming is when debt, excluding a mortgage, is beyond one quarter of the annual income for the household, Kennedy said. And missing a couple house payments during a decade is forgivable for most banks, but missing two payments in a year is a sign of serious trouble, he added.

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