Foreclosed Homes Foreclosure To Rise After A Brief Respite

Last month, the number of foreclosed homes foreclosure in Cumberland County, New Jersey declined significantly. However, industry experts are expecting that the worse is still yet to come.

Foreclosure experts at the Affordable Homes of Millville Ecumenical (AHOME) said that despite the drop in foreclosed homes foreclosure numbers in June, they still received over 100 telephone calls monthly from county residents seeking help on how to avoid foreclosures.

Kellie Maul, one of the foreclosure experts at AHOME, said that she is afraid that the county has not yet experience its worst foreclosure figures. She pointed out that many homeowners who bought their properties in 2007 are still due for significant increases in the interest rates on their home loans.

She explained that these adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) allowed many homeowners to sign up for teaser rates, meaning they are low rates for the first two years after they took out the loan. She added that homeowners who purchased their properties in 2007, during the peak of the construction activity in Millville, will see their interest rates increase by as much as two percent.

Maui said that in June 2009, there were 27 filings for foreclosed homes foreclosure in Cumberland County. This means that homeowners are at least 3 months delayed in their mortgage payments. The figures were higher compared with 71 in April and 78 in May.

Cumberland County posted foreclosure filings on 2,660 properties since January of this year. Maui pointed out that despite a drop in the June foreclosure rates, things are not getting better in Cumberland County. She said that lenders and lawyers are overloaded with foreclosures and the backlog of foreclosure cases in Trenton courts are equivalent to 10 months.

Meanwhile, Maui said that the average time period for a foreclosure process started from nine months to a year and now has lasted 16 to 2 two years due to the volume of backlog.

At AHOME, the counseling agency is fully booked until September of this year. But Maui is still encouraging distressed homeowners to contact the agency as soon as they start having trouble making their mortgage payments.

She cited two New Jersey programs designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosed homes foreclosure. These are the New Jersey-sponsored mediation program and the Making Home Affordable program which allows borrowers of mortgages insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce their loan interest rate to just 2 percent.