Southeast Queens: "Ground Zero" In NYC Foreclosure Crisis

In New York City, Crain's New York Business reports:

• In mid-2006, Suzette Francis was homeless with two young children and a third on the way. She earned just over $300 a week as a security guard. But she had a decent credit score, and her real estate broker told her that was enough for her to buy a $450,000 two-family home in Jamaica, Queens. In December, Ms. Francis left the shelter where she had been living and moved in. Foreclosure proceedings began immediately.

• "I couldn't make a single payment," says Ms. Francis, 31. And no wonder: The monthly payment was $2,000 more than her income from her job and the rent from her tenant.

• Ms. Francis' case, though extreme, doesn't surprise anyone familiar with subprime lending in southeast Queens, where shady home loans have led to an onslaught of foreclosures this year. The seizure of hundreds of houses threatens to destabilize blocks, drive down property values and damage the community's economy, say city officials and civic leaders.

For more, see Jamaica area is ground zero of foreclosure crisis (Leads in high-cost loans; hundreds of borrowers victims of predator schemes).