Foreclosures of residential houses are marching on in Sedgwick County. This is the picture that has come through the first quarter of this year. There are more signs of the financial stress in the community. Over 1,100 residential houses are slotted for foreclosure sale in the county during the first quarter.
It is 60% above the first quarter of the previous year and one third higher than the last quarter. Nevertheless the number is half that of the national rate and a mini fraction of the bubbles of Las Vegas and Miami.

The foreclosures are increasing in Sedgwick County because of drop in earnings and job losses said Ryan Deitchler of Consumer Credit Counseling Service. The February unemployment rate was 8.1% – it being twice of what it was one year previously. Deitchler said, “They just don’t have the income to make the payments.”
He observed that a good number of borrowers take the problem to be for a short period and they dip into their savings to pay the mortgage dues while they hunt for alternative employments. Finally they try to sell off the house. The trouble is that jobs are hard to find and so too is it difficult to find a customer for the house. With unemployment insurance it is not sufficient to meet essential expenses and continue with the mortgage.
Attorney Frank Ojile said, “I talked with a guy yesterday who has had a house on the market for a year and can’t sell it. And it’s a $300,000 house.” Ojile works both for the banks and the borrowers as and when the call comes. He is seeing that one year ago it was mainly the workers in the aircraft sector that were suffering foreclosure but today it is telling on a broad section of populace coming from many fields of work and having various levels of income.

When the money starts to dip the borrowers panic and then contact the lenders pressing them to lower the payments. But it is easier said than done – the process being a long drawn complex one. The problem is that the local banks no longer hold the mortgages. The large banks service the mortgages. Thus the net result is that the homeowner finds himself up against a swath of bureaucrats all sitting at the end of innumerable phone lines.
Deitchler quipped, “By the time I see them, they’re pretty frustrated.”

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