Mortgage Default Information

Family's bitter tale among cases of foreclosure as defaults head up again in Oklahoma City

BUILDER Online |

In Brief...

Chronic illness and mushrooming medical bills wrecked a family's finances, but pure spite cost them their home. It was a family in northwest Oklahoma City, the former "most recession-proof city" in the country that, despite some bruises from the volatility of energy prices and a stubborn commercial credit drought, still stands among a handful of places not sent reeling by the national housing bust and recession. If jobs drive housing and consumer confidence, then Oklahoma City, with an enviable unemployment rate of 6 percent -- second lowest among big cities -- still has a chauffeur. It was ugly, said Joe Pryor, the Realtor who was trying to help them to a short sale. Through October, the Oklahoma City area had 7,015 foreclosure filings -- counting default notices, foreclosure auctions scheduled and bank repossessions -- compared with 7,082 the first 10 months of 2006, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. Too many people in foreclosure just waited too late to look for help, said Pryor, a Realtor with Redbud Realty & Associates in Edmond. "People are often in denial, or like an ostrich, bury their heads in the sand thinking if they just don't look the problem will go away and it doesn't," Pryor said. The numbers will balloon in coming months, especially in mid 2011 and 2012 when "the people who did the stupid loans" start to pay for it, said Mary Berry, broker-owner of Century 21 All Pro, 8524 S Western Ave. Homes are being foreclosed in all price ranges all over the metro area, Berry said, ticking off newer neighborhoods in Edmond, El Reno, Midwest City, Moore and Oklahoma City north and south. It could be worse, of course, said Sandra Dawson, a Realtor with Prudential Alliance Realty, 4101 NW 122, who specializes in distressed home sales. Dawson's lowest-priced foreclosure sale recently fetched $12,000 for a 1,182-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-bath house built in 1925 on what is now NW 99. Her highest-priced sale lately brought just more than $600,000 for a four-bedroom house of nearly 4,000 square feet in north Edmond.

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