Tracking Foreclosures Where You Live

For more than six years, the collapse of the housing market has sunk the country into the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Five Eyewitness News has been tracking the number of foreclosures in Minnesota and Wisconsin since the bubble burst in 2006. And now, here on KSTP.com, we're breaking the crisis down by zip code, so you can see exactly how it's affecting your community. Some of the most problematic areas might surprise you.

In addition, to put a human face on the numbers, we spent a day driving from zip code to zip code, to meet some of the people who are most affected by the crisis--to hear their voices, listen to their frustrations and learn about their struggles. We started in North Minneapolis.

"I was supposed to be gone by Thanksgiving," said Monique White, inside the home she bought for $127,000 a decade ago. "I'm still here so, that's a blessing." When White was laid off from her full time job as a youth counselor at a non-profit, she still had a second, part-time job at a liquor store to support the extended family that lives with her. Among them: two sons, several grandchildren, and an aunt.

"And I've been at that store for nine years," she said. But it's not paycheck large enough to pay all her bills.

So, she got a second part time job--at a dollar store. "Both jobs don't equal what I was making," she said. "But it helps."

Her mortgage is $900 a month. Now, she says she can only really afford "between $500 and $600 a month, at the most." She says she applied for a number of government loan modification programs but "they said I did not qualify."

She then enlisted the aid of people like Anthony Newby with the organization Neighborhoods Organizing for Change. "Monique's not asking for a handout," he said. "She's not asking for anything for free. She's asking for a good faith negotiation from the banks. Not only does she have one job, she has two jobs. There should be a way that the bank can work with her to come up with the reasonable payment that's in keeping with what the home is actually worth."

But instead, White's home was auctioned off by her bank last fall, to another financial institution. It sold for less than $80,000. Her belongings are packed. She's awaiting an eviction.

"It terrifies me to know that at any given moment I can be put out of my house with nowhere to go," she said.

White lives in zip code 55411, an area devastated by more than 4,900 foreclosures in the last six years. That's nearly 49 percent of the 10,002 homes in the zip code. Nearly one out of two.

"I've driven through the neighborhood and I've cried," she said.

Five Eyewitness News totaled the number of auctions and repossessions, as compiled by RealtyTrac since 2006, for all 1,651 zip codes in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Monique White's 55411 ranks first, a distinction no one wants.

"I live in 55411 too," said 5th District Congressman Keith Ellison.

Ellison believes a law should be passed to allow courts to force banks to reduce the principle on home loans--which would help people like White. "In fairness to some of the banks," he said, "many of them have re-modified loans and work with people. I don't want to paint too broad of a brush because there have been some good actors in the financial community. But there have been some horrible actors too. And far too many. And the bad ones are not making up for the good ones."

On the other side of town, in South Minneapolis, 55407 is the 21st most troubled zip on our list. Nearly 19 percent of the homes here have been in foreclosure since 2006--homes like Bobby Hull's. He's caught in a financial perfect storm.

"Yeah, but you can't see a Marine cry," he said, wiping away tears when asked if the last few years have been heartbreaking for him.

Hull took out home equity loans to start a business that never flew, lost investments, suffered through a myriad of health issues, got divorced, and then was unable to stop an adjustable arm mortgage that, upon adjustment, raised his monthly mortgage about a thousand dollars. It's money he doesn't have.

"In the beginning i was embarrassed and i thought I was at fault," he said. "But after looking at the epidemic that's going on around the world I realized I'm not at fault. we're not at fault as a group. There's too many of us to be wrong."

As for that loan modification process, he said, "It was almost like trickery. They put this carrot out in front of you but made sure you could never get to it."

Sold to a financial institution last August, Hull was supposed to vacate his home by February 17th. He's still there.

"We're not going," he said defiantly.

But the foreclosure statistics stretch to places some might not expect--like in Albertville, Otsego and other areas of Minnesota's Wright County. They're all a part of zip code 55301. There have been 941 foreclosures there since 2006--nearly 25 percent of all the homes in the zip code On our list, it ranks as the ninth most affected area.

On the steps of her home in Albertrville, Cyndy Winkelman holds her newly adopted son while her grandson plays behind them. "I think people were talked into something they couldn't afford," she said. "You know, a big dream."

Winkelman says the owners of the house next door to her moved out because they were underwater, which means their mortgage was worth far more than what their home is now worth. She says they told her it wasn't worth staying, and paying. "And that's the second time that house has been foreclosed on," she said.

One house. Two families in a row. Gone.

"I've seen this happen, oh everywhere." she said. "I don't think people are just giving up. They're trying as much as they can. But then it comes a point in time when it's like, are you trying in vain."

In fact, WInkelman might be next. She's also struggling to make her mortgage payments. "Definitely, definitely," she said. But she has a back-up plan, of sorts. "I can get a fourth job."

She needs to keep her house, plain and simple. "For my family. To keep us together. To have a place to live," she said. But she's worried. "More like scared."

Leaders in zip code 55301 say less than a decade ago they were focused on planning and development and growth. Now they've adopted a vacant property registration program to make sure foreclosed homes have their lawns mowed, that water is turned off so pipes don't freeze and burst, that roofs aren't leaking after storms. According to Albertville City Administrator Larry Kruse, "I don't think the city has the ability to prop up the private housing market. What we can do is make sure that we're preserving our neighborhoods, make sure that we're maintaining the value."

But Ellison pointed out, "Even if you're living next to a foreclosed property, on average your housing value is going to drop $17,000, if not more. So, I mean, it really hurts everyone. You know, I get concerned about people who say 'just let it all bottom out'. No one who says that has any idea of the human toll that will be taken."

It's a human toll, sometimes hidden, but one of deep despair. Inside every single zip code. The news doesn't get much better when you look at the numbers for the first month of 2012. In January in Minnesota, foreclosures were up 17 percent according to RealtyTrac, compared to January 2011.

"Everybody is saying how the economy is getting better," said White. "I don't see it right now, getting better. Because as for me, I am a part of this and I don't see it getting better. If it is, someone needs to tell me where at."

Finding the Foreclosures in Your Neighborhood

To find out just how many homes have fallen into foreclosure in YOUR neighborhood, Five Eyewitness News examined all 1,651 zip codes in Minnesota and Wisconsin.(The data is based on the total number of auctions and repossessions since 2006, as compiled by RealtyTrac.) To find how your community is affected, click on the area of the map below where you live. The corresponding zip code will then pop up with complete information.

Minnesota

 

Wisconsin

Mark Saxenmeyer can be reached at msaxenmeyer@kstp.com

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