Foreclosure Index
Foreclosures on Long Island have skyrocketed over the last two years. View information on foreclosures, in the context of home sales, in your community below.
Source: Long Island Real Estate Report - Jan. 2009-Sept. 2009
Nassau
Suffolk
0-0.5
0.5-1
1-1.5
1.5-2
2+
Lis pendens map (ratios)
A homeowner usually receives a lis pendens - the first legal notice in the foreclosure process - after missing three months of mortgage payments. As home sales have fallen over the last several years, lis pendens rose at a tremendous pace. Even as home sales have begun to climb again, however, lie pendens continued to increase.
As a result, the ratio between the number of lis pendens and the number of home sales across Long Island has risen considerably over the last two years. Long Island-wide, the ratio is .84. But for many of the Island's hardest-hit communities, that ratio is far higher than 1:1, meaning that for every homeowner able to sell his or her home, there's at least 1 homeowner just beginning to default on his or her mortgage.
Less than 2%
2-5%
5-10%
10-20%
Over 20%
Foreclosure Sales map (percentage)
A property in foreclosure often never makes it to the auction block, because homeowners finds a way out of foreclosure or decide to sell their homes in what is called a short sale. Yet, those homes that do end up at a foreclosure auction are then sold - and labeled as foreclosure sales. That's true even when no investor bids on the property - and it ends up in the possession of the bank that held the mortgage loan. These foreclosure sales have been on the rise - and are making up an increasing percentage of overall home sales. As a result, the fact that home sales are increasing is, in part, due to foreclosures that don't contribute nearly as much to the economy and, if anything, can hold home prices down.
Long Island-wide the percentage of home sales that are actually foreclosure sales is 9.1 percent. But for many of the Island's hardest-hit communities, it exceeds 20 percent. And even these numbers are artificially low, in many cases, because they don't include short sales and other methods of transferring a property that's in foreclosure.
0-0.5
0.5-1
1-1.5
1.5-2
2+
Lis pendens map (ratios)
A homeowner usually receives a lis pendens - the first legal notice in the foreclosure process - after missing three months of mortgage payments. As home sales have fallen over the last several years, lis pendens rose at a tremendous pace. Even as home sales have begun to climb again, however, lie pendens continued to increase.
As a result, the ratio between the number of lis pendens and the number of home sales across Long Island has risen considerably over the last two years. Long Island-wide, the ratio is .84. But for many of the Island's hardest-hit communities, that ratio is far higher than 1:1, meaning that for every homeowner able to sell his or her home, there's at least 1 homeowner just beginning to default on his or her mortgage.
Less than 2%
2-5%
5-10%
10-20%
Over 20%
Foreclosure Sales map (percentage)
A property in foreclosure often never makes it to the auction block, because homeowners finds a way out of foreclosure or decide to sell their homes in what is called a short sale. Yet, those homes that do end up at a foreclosure auction are then sold - and labeled as foreclosure sales. That's true even when no investor bids on the property - and it ends up in the possession of the bank that held the mortgage loan. These foreclosure sales have been on the rise - and are making up an increasing percentage of overall home sales. As a result, the fact that home sales are increasing is, in part, due to foreclosures that don't contribute nearly as much to the economy and, if anything, can hold home prices down.
Long Island-wide the percentage of home sales that are actually foreclosure sales is 9.1 percent. But for many of the Island's hardest-hit communities, it exceeds 20 percent. And even these numbers are artificially low, in many cases, because they don't include short sales and other methods of transferring a property that's in foreclosure.
