Foreclosure

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet — one-tenth the size of the average new American house — and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap — that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

The family owners of The Inn at the Black Olive in Fells Point hope a bankruptcy filing Thursday will give them time to try to attract investors and keep operating the 2-year-old boutique hotel, their bankruptcy attorney said. The Black Olive Development Co. LLC's Chapter 7 filing in Baltimore's U.S. Bankruptcy Court prevented a planned foreclosure auction of the 12-suite luxury inn on South Caroline Street from going forward Thursday morning. Chapter 7 permits an orderly liquidation of assets to repay creditors, but the case could be converted to a Chapter 11 reorganization if the company finds investors.

The First Mount Olive Free Will Baptist Church bought a luxurious custom Bentley in 2005, the same year the inner-city church failed to pay a $12,000 water bill that has led to the filing of a foreclosure suit, motor vehicle records show. The congregation that owns the 140-year-old West Baltimore church, destroyed last week by lightning, is fending off multiple foreclosure threats because of the delinquent water bill and an alleged mortgage default on the 9-acre property the church owns in Southwest Baltimore, according to court records.

Maryland homeowners have received over $1.1 billion in assistance from the National Mortgage Settlement, according to a report released Thursday by the settlement's court-appointed monitor. Just over 14,000 homeowners in the state, between March 1, 2012 and the end of the year, received help from the settlement with five major mortgage servicers that were accused of abusive foreclosure practices. The average amount of relief, including mortgage modifications and short sale assistance, was $79,082, the monitor's report said.

More buyers are looking to score a deal on a foreclosure, while more Americans are worried that the foreclosed properties will lower their home values. Those are two of the highlights from a recent Realtor.com survey that illustrates how people's attitudes about foreclosures are changing. That's perhaps not too surprising, given that bank-owned properties have become commonplace in American cities in recent years. Realtor.com, the website for the National Association of Realtors, commissioned the survey, which was conducted May 4-6. The results are based on more than 1,000 interviews.

This letter is in regard to your recent coverage of the foreclosure protest in Union Square ("Occupy Baltimore members gather to fight foreclosure," Jan. 11). As a reader and subscriber to the online and print editions of The Sun, I am disappointed because the article lacked facts and background information that could have made it great. It's also a situation that ties into many issues The Sun has covered recently such as "Occupy" protest, the city's high property tax rate, foreclosures, short sales, disillusion at large banks receiving special treatment that little people do not, and human interest about the plight of our elderly.

Cities across America are feeling the sharp pinch of the subprime mortgage crisis: billions in lost tax revenues, a decline in new-housing starts, fewer home sales and - most insidious - a swell of vacant, foreclosed homes. Mortgage lenders aren't responding fast enough to the crisis, which leaves room for others to step in - and bankruptcy judges are in an excellent position to help. They should be given the power to reset home mortgage rates as an immediate remedy for those seeking bankruptcy protection.

A Reisterstown synagogue facing foreclosure is one of an increasing number of U.S. houses of worship suffering in the continuing financial slump. Susquehanna Bank filed to foreclose on Adat Chaim in March, saying in court papers that the 27-year-old synagogue had defaulted on an $800,000 loan taken out in 2005. The Lititz, Pa.-based bank, which filed the case in Baltimore County Circuit Court, listed remaining debt of more than $756,0000. Once nearly unheard of, foreclosures on houses of worship jumped to record numbers nationally in the past two years, showing that religious facilities are not immune to the wave of foreclosures that followed the bursting of the credit bubble.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has given the go-ahead for Citigroup to sell property in South Baltimore's Westport neighborhood that is owned by developer Patrick Turner, according to court records. In November, lender Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp. filed a foreclosure action against Turner-affiliated companies, alleging they owed nearly $32 million on a 2007 loan. Several parcels of land -- 2401 through 2417 Kloman Street -- were secured as collateral for the loan, according to court records.

Occupy Baltimore protesters set a new scene Tuesday for their stand against corporate greed and social injustice: a red-brick rowhouse in Union Square where a 65-year-old widow has made her home for nearly six years. As many as 100 protesters gathered outside Lila Kara's house, where faded American flags occupy a curbside flower bed, to block the Baltimore City Sheriff's Office from evicting the Bulgarian immigrant — at least for a day. The action is an evolution of Baltimore's version of the three-month-old national movement, when protesters camped at McKeldin Square.

Dawn Wooldridge of Keller Williams American Premier Realty in Bel Air has earned the prestigious Certified Distressed Property Expert designation, having completed extensive training in foreclosure avoidance, with a particular emphasis on short sales. At a time when millions of homeowners are struggling with the possibility of foreclosure, the skills and education amassed by Wooldridge will help benefit Harford County-area residents and communities. Short sales allow the distressed homeowner to repay the mortgage at the price that the home sells for, even if it is lower than what is owed on the property.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has given the go-ahead for Citigroup to sell property in South Baltimore's Westport neighborhood that is owned by developer Patrick Turner, according to court records. In November, lender Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp. filed a foreclosure action against Turner-affiliated companies, alleging they owed nearly $32 million on a 2007 loan. Several parcels of land -- 2401 through 2417 Kloman Street -- were secured as collateral for the loan, according to court records.

Imagine that a federal agency wanted to hurt America's working-class families on purpose. How would it inflict maximum damage? It might start by aggressively marketing homeownership to marginal borrowers. It would tell them that bad credit scores aren't a problem. It would push them into homes they can't afford, saddle them with loans that barely build equity and provide no incentives for fiscal discipline. And when many of these homes go underwater and into foreclosure, it would leave families in financial ruin.

The foreclosure rate in the Baltimore metro area was up more than a half of one percent in October when compared to the rate a year earlier, according to numbers recently released by business data firm CoreLogic. “Foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans was 3.36 percent for the month of October 2012, an increase of 0.53 percentage points compared to October of 2011 when the rate was 2.83 percent,” the firm said in a statement. Those stats apply to the region made up of Baltimore and six nearby counties - Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne's.

A Hunt Valley attorney who admitted to having his employees sign his name to foreclosure documents was found by a Baltimore County judge to have violated three of Maryland's rules of professional conduct for lawyers, according to court records. Thomas P. Dore engaged in behavior that was "prejudicial to the administration of justice" by "routinely and repeatedly" filing "with the courts affidavits purportedly signed by him and attested to by notaries" he employed, according to court documents.

Homes with federally insured mortgages - afforded to mostly lower-income borrowers - are expected to see a spike in foreclosures because of dicey lending practices, according to a recent study. More than a dozen ZIP codes in the Baltimore metropolitan area could see foreclosure rates above 15 percent and as high as 43 percent for Federal Housing Administration-backed loans, according to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank. Historically, such loans have put homeownership within reach for Americans who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. The minimum down payment on an FHA loan is 3.5 percent, while private lenders typically require as much as 20 percent.

News that Citigroup is foreclosing on developer Patrick Turner's Westport Waterfront property did not alarm Keisha Allen, the leader of the Westport Neighborhood Association. "To the average person, it looks like everything in Westport is tied up with Pat Turner," Allen said Tuesday. But, she said, "the waterfront is the icing on the cake of development that's happening here. " Financial troubles for Turner's massive mixed-use development along the western shore of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco river have been simmering for months, culminating with Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp.

The deadline is about three weeks away for homeowners to request a free, independent review of foreclosure actions that were in process during 2009 or 2010. The program, Independent Foreclosure Review, was set up last year by the U.S. Treasury Department. It applies to mortgages that were serviced by one of 27 companies and went into foreclosure during a two-year period when foreclosure processes were under a cloud of suspicion. The program stems from orders issued by the Treasury to “14 large residential mortgage servicers and two third-party vendors,” according to a statement from the Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

News that Citigroup is foreclosing on developer Patrick Turner's Westport Waterfront property did not alarm Keisha Allen, the leader of the Westport Neighborhood Association. "To the average person, it looks like everything in Westport is tied up with Pat Turner," Allen said Tuesday. But, she said, "the waterfront is the icing on the cake of development that's happening here. " Financial troubles for Turner's massive mixed-use development along the western shore of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco river have been simmering for months, culminating with Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp.