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Foreclosures to get worse before they get better

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Foreclosures to get worse before they get better

By Guest Commentary The Tribune

The headlines say it all:Weld County worst in Foreclosures. Foreclosures to get worse before they get better. Foreclosures at all-time high. But when will it be time to stop talking about how many foreclosures there are and do something about the problem?More about: Foreclosures to get worse


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Tracy K. Gosson, executive director of Live Baltimore, says gay people are among her targets. For most of them, she says, Baltimore's weak public schools aren't a big issue. They really value historic architecture, which we have a lot of, says Ms. Gosson, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., who moved to Baltimore in 1993 and renovated a row house.

Even for people who have school-age kids, Ms. Gosson has a ready pitch: "You're going to pay so much less for the house here that you can afford private schools."

Attracted by Location. In some areas, the city is trying to acquire run-down houses and string together large parcels of land that can be offered to private developers. One big developer recently drawn to Baltimore is KSI Services Inc., Vienna, Va. KSI is a partner in two projects that involve plans for a total of about 1,500 new residential units, including townhouses and condominiums. Robert Kettler, chairman of KSI, says he was attracted by Baltimore's location near the booming Washington area and by Mayor O'Malley's enthusiasm. "If you need to talk to the mayor, he'll call you back in three minutes," Mr. Kettler says.

The city is also drawing hundreds of small property investors and speculators. In one blighted but promising neighborhood, Barclay, between the city's main rail station and Johns Hopkins, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently scheduled an auction of 56 rental properties it had acquired through foreclosures. The Baltimore housing department feared that the homes would attract a new generation of slumlords, people without the resources to transform the neighborhood, says Christopher Shea, a city planning official.

Rather than letting the homes fall into what he calls "weak hands," Mr. Shea persuaded HUD to cancel the auction and sell the properties to the city. Mr. Shea says those properties and others nearby will be offered to developers willing to renovate several city blocks.

One determined investor is Donna Meeks, a 56-year-old college English professor who grew up in Washington but now lives in Pasadena, Calif. Ms. Meeks, alerted by friends to the investment potential of Baltimore housing, arrived here around 6 a.m. one day in mid-March and headed directly for an auction of rental homes. She was struck by how low the prices were in comparison to California, where the median home price is about $509,000. At the auction, she quickly bought three houses, sight unseen, for a total of $73,000.

By the end of the day, after a quick exterior inspection of her three new properties in blighted neighborhoods, Ms. Meeks was suffering from a mild case of buyers' remorse. "I just took the red-eye in from L.A., walked in, slammed down some money and put my auction card up," she said. "Later, it was sort of like, 'Have you lost your mind?' "

The auction house where Ms. Meeks bought her properties, Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc., sold all of the 112 houses on offer that day for prices ranging from $25,000 to $147,000. Alex Cooper, which also auctions antiques and Oriental rugs, began holding regular large-scale sales of houses last year after some local landlords decided it was a good time to unload their properties on eager newcomers.

Paul Cooper, who runs the auction firm, estimates that more than 80% of the buyers at his March auction were from out of town, and he plans more such sales. "These people are insatiable," Mr. Cooper says.

Baltimore Real Estate

JAMES R. HAGERTY and
KEMBA J. DUNHAM
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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Baltimore is an independent city located in the state of Maryland on the eastern coast of the United States of America. As of 2005, the population was 641,943, down slightly from 643,304 in 2004. The population of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, as of 2005, was estimated to be 8,052,496, up from 7.6 million in 2000. Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland and serves as the state's major cultural and industrial center.