Real Estate

Are you a female heads of households looking to buy a home in the Cleveland area? If you answered "yes" you will probably want to attend the 'Mortgages for Mothers' being held by Dollar Bank at the Cleveland State Wolstein Center. The event has been held for eight years and attracts 300 attendees. With the real estate slump and financial uncertainty ahead, it is probably best to talk to an expert before buying a new home.

"The combination of aggressive sub-prime lenders plus borrowers anxious to become homeowners may have led many into a bad loan that they couldn't afford," explained Larry Slenczka, Dollar Bank's Vice President of Community Development who is running this years event. "For the past eight years, Dollar Bank has been holding these free workshops to explain to potential borrowers the complexities of the mortgage process and to help them design a plan to buy a house within their means and to obtain a mortgage that they can afford."

While 'The Beatles' famously sang "Magical Mystery Tour" in 1967, the city of Cleveland will host something much more depressing when ReMax realtor Al Stasek will launch a $15 tour of homes that have been foreclosed and up for sale.

Stasek will show a dozen homes and is taking bids right on the bus. Each trip to a foreclosed home will include a brief tour of the property. Stasek also plans on more tours if the trip is succesful. The first trip is scheduled for April 5th at 11 am.

If you are interested in attending the real estate bus trip, you are asked to call (877) 925-1018 ex.160.

While Midwestern cities, including Cleveland and Detroit, were the hardest hit areas last year in terms of foreclosures, it seems the trend has now moved on to other areas. The booming city of Las Vegas is now considered to be at the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis in America, a shift that began at the end of 2007.

According to statistics compiled by CNNMoney.com and RealtyTrac, seven of the top 100 worst-hit zip codes from December 2007 were in Sin City. Subprime mortgage loans were particularly prevalent in Las Vegas, and typically default at far higher rates than traditional, fixed-rate mortgages.

The hardest hit zip code was 89031 in North Las Vegas, with a total of 741 filings in December. These filings include default notices, auction notices, and bank repossessions. Second worst on the list was the zip code 89131, with 665 filings.

What's different about the foreclosure crisis in the Midwestern cities and those in Las Vegas is that, for example, the 89131 area is prosperous, with strong employment and income levels above the state average. In Cleveland, that's just not the case at all. In Las Vegas, the problems with foreclosures stem from the unafforable terms of the mortgages themselves, not the local economic conditions.

According to a report issued by the New York Times on Sunday, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is racking up pricey penalties after having missed a deadline to complete preparations at the World Trace Center site. Since the deadline of January 1 has passed, the Port Authority has begun accruing fines of $300,000 per day. At this rate, they've already built up a fine of more than $3 million.