Tucson in Pima County, Arizona is a growing city that keeps on improving and becoming better. The landscape here looks like a picture post card with cactus fields, undulating hills and stirring mountains. Tucson borders Mexico and this has led to a blending of cultures that makes the city more attractive to visitors.
The culture is an amalgam of Native American, Spain and Anglo settlers exploring the West. The weather is rather mild round the year – just perfect for fun and frolic. Tucson is a piece of Arizona that can be described as real, raw and natural.
Into this paradise has sneaked in Bank foreclosures in Tucson. Another set of people are pouring into Tucson. They are not tourists but potential purchasers of the many Bank foreclosures in Tucson. The sub-prime mortgage loans with its initial teaser rates are largely to blame for the staggering number of Bank foreclosures in Tucson. Lenders foreclose on properties to realize unpaid dues but there are so many Bank foreclosures in Tucson that the banks are in a dilemma. They do not have the infrastructure to manage so many Bank foreclosures in Tucson.
The Bank foreclosures in Tucson are leading to a chain of problems. While the unit is in foreclosure the houses remain neglected because the banks do not want to take over responsibility of maintaining the properties until they have got the deed. Meanwhile the vacant houses attract crime like magnets. Disease too spreads from stagnant pools and overgrown gardens. The value of adjacent houses takes a tumble and with the drop in sales the government collection of revenue dwindles. Everything combines to make banks very unpopular while politicians fret and fume.
In Pima County about 9,000 foreclosures were noted in 2008. This is three times more than the foreclosure postings of 2006. It indicates how deep has been the fall of the housing market from the day of the housing boom.
Betty J. Villegas the housing programme manager can assess the gravity from the piles of returned letters. For the last twelve months Pima County has been dispatching letters to each property owner who has got an auction sale notice telling about the help that is available for free to enable them to stay in their homes. But the returned letters indicate that the owners simply walked away without contesting leaving the houses vacant and deserted.
The flood of foreclosures has badly mauled the real estate market in Tucson causing prices to tumble.