Financial Assistance to Buyers of Foreclosure Listing Homes

The city of Opa-locka in South Florida has launched a Neighborhood Stabilization Program designed to provide financial assistance to buyers of foreclosure listing homes. Under the program, about 70 low-income individuals and families will have a chance of purchasing and owning abandoned and foreclosed properties.

AT&T Florida put up $50,000 and Miami Heat player James Jones made a financial commitment to help in down payments and closing costs. And so far, the city’s Community Development Corp. has approved 20 applications to purchase houses on foreclosure listing.

Opa-Locka Community Development Corp. President Willie Logan said that buyers could move in immediately on abandoned or foreclosed houses. The program will be funded partly from the organization’s home budget of $250,000.

The organization plans to get more financial support for the program by partnering with various municipalities to use the funds from the federal government’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Meanwhile, Jones, who attended the launching of the program, pointed out the effects of foreclosure on community building. He said that families and children have been deprived of a stable environment to live because their homes were placed on foreclosure listing.

Florida is one of the states in the country with high foreclosure rates. The state reported an increase of 3.08 percent in foreclosures from January to June of this year, with one out of 33 homeowners receiving a foreclosure filing. For the first six months of this year, Florida earned the third highest spot in the country in terms of foreclosure rate.

According to market data, foreclosure filings were made on 268,064 homes in Florida for the first half of this year. The state ranked second in terms of highest foreclosure filings for the first six months. For the period, foreclosure activity in the state rose by 7 percent compared to the last six months of 2008 and 42 percent higher from the preceding six months.

The repossession trend in Florida mirrors the national foreclosed activity which saw nearly 1,905,723 filings for foreclosure from January to June this year, representing a 9 percent rise compared with the total number of filings in the last six months the previous year and 15 percent higher from the January to June 2008 figures. Furthermore, 1.19 percent of the total national households received foreclosure listing filings for the same period.