During 2012, in many villages on Long Island, there were more foreclosures than there were real estate sales. Areas where there were more foreclosures than real estate sales involve the towns of Freeport, Bellport, Inwood, Amityville and a variety of other towns on Long Island. Even without the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, the real estate market was far from being healthy.
Home Sales Fall
In 2005 there were approximately 50,000 homes sold on Long Island. In 2012 there were only 22,000 home sales. The value of the homes sold in 2005 was approximately $30 billion, while the value of the real estate transactions in 2012 was only $13 billion dollars. There were approximately 6,200 foreclosed homes in 2005 while there were 14,000 in the year 2012.
Stagnant Real Estate Market
The real estate market on Long Island is not recovering. Experts refer to it as being “stagnant”. Maryann Garvin who heads the Community Development Corp of Long Island, a not for profit housing advocacy group, recently stated “you want a healthy housing market where you have movement…where people can sell their house and get a bigger house, or sell it and get a smaller house. It doesn’t feel like our market is that fluid.”
Investors Buying Homes
In some areas of Long Island, speculators are purchasing distressed homes. These speculators purchase the homes, do a minimum amount of repairs and either rent them or resell them for a profit. Investors are now becoming involved in the purchase of homes in water front communities which were badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy. In some of these situations the homeowners have decided not to repair their homes because of the fear there will be hurricanes in the future.
Unfortunately for the homeowners, the real estate market in many of these areas was further devastated by the extensive damage caused to many homes by Hurricane Sandy. The investors are buying these homes for rock bottom prices with the hope in a few years people won’t remember the problems caused by Sandy and they will make a significant profit on their investments.
Fighting Foreclosure Proceedings
Many homeowners, especially those in waterfront communities which were significantly damaged by Hurricane Sandy are no longer paying their mortgages. They hope to stay in their homes for as long as they can while hiring lawyers to fight their foreclosures proceedings.
Foreclosure Defense Lawyers
The Law Offices of Schlissel DeCorpo is one of the largest foreclosure defense law firms in the metropolitan New York area. Our firm has helped hundreds of families stay in their homes and fight off foreclosure proceedings. In some of our cases, families have not made mortgage payments for close to a decade and still reside in their homes. Our law office aggressively litigates issues concerning fraudulent mortgages, foreclosure fraud and predatory lending issues.