By Erica Noonan, Boston Globe, MetroWest edition December 18, 2008
The mortgage crisis is not some faraway national problem to George Lewis and his neighbors. It has come home to Gilbert Street.
The mortgage crisis is not some faraway national problem to George Lewis and his neighbors. It has come home to Gilbert Street.
During the first six months of this
year, four of the 38 houses on this pleasant street a few blocks south of
downtown Framingham were involved in the foreclosure process, which generally
takes several months and requires several legal steps before a judgment is
issued against an owner.
Three of the houses, Nos. 11, 25,
and 37-39, are clustered near the Winthrop Street end of Gilbert.
All three appear to be vacant. Trash and fliers have accumulated on the porch and lawn of No. 37-39. The fourth property, No. 64, is midway down the street, and still has a neatly kept appearance.
All three appear to be vacant. Trash and fliers have accumulated on the porch and lawn of No. 37-39. The fourth property, No. 64, is midway down the street, and still has a neatly kept appearance.
The three-family house at 37-39
Gilbert looks as though it was vacated in midrenovation, after the LaSalle Bank
National Association filed an order of notice for foreclosure against its
owners, Neylor and Marcela Silva, in February, according to the state Registry of
Deeds. On a recent visit, an old toilet lay in a side yard overgrown by weeds.
Ripped weatherproofing partially covered an unfinished bay window, and toys and
debris cluttered the backyard, alongside a soggy sofa covered in mildewed
plastic.
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| Major code violations and work performed without permits at 37-39 Gilbert Street |
"How can I sell my house if
people see this?" said Lewis, a painter who has lived a decade in the
otherwise well-kept neighborhood within walking distance to shopping and
Waushakum Pond.
The community is an ideal place for
artists, Lewis said, affordable yet close to Boston and suburban cultural
centers in Framingham and Natick. But the presence of the troubled houses is
upsetting.
"I am very concerned about
preserving the value of my home. I think many of us on this street are,"
said Lewis, who mowed the lawn of the abandoned house over the summer to
improve its curb appeal.
Just a few years ago, things on
Gilbert Street were different. Prosperity seemed abundant. At the height of the
market in 2004 and 2005, houses on the street were selling for upward of
$400,000. The house at 37-39 Gilbert sold for $560,000 in May 2005.
Then the economy started to slow,
and the housing market nationwide plunged amid the ongoing subprime mortgage
crisis. In Framingham, by the end of October, foreclosure actions had begun on
350 houses out of the town's stock of 17,700 residential properties. That's up
from last year's total of 336, according to the Warren Group, a Boston company
that tracks local real estate data.
Foreclosure has affected only about
2 percent of the houses in Framingham, but the unlucky coincidence of four
houses going through the foreclosure process on his street has left Lewis
worried about safety as well as property values.
He said he pestered town officials
for weeks to padlock 37-39, which he viewed as an invitation to squatters as
well as a danger to firefighters and curious children, because so much of its
flooring was ripped up during the start of renovations.
"If someone gets hurt, they are
going to sue the town, which is going to make the problem even worse,"
said Lewis.
The other houses appear, from the
outside, to be in better shape, but none of the owners of record could be
reached to discuss what happened to their properties.
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| Driveway at 11 Gilbert Street. This single family house was illegally converted to a three-family. |
REMAX realtor Didier Lopez said last
month that he tried to sell 25 Gilbert - bought in 2005 for $345,000 by Ronaldo
Solano - for between $225,000 and $240,000 several months ago. Solano had
received an order of notice of foreclosure from lender Salem Five Mortgage
Company LLC in August, according to state records.
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| Illegal paving of property at 25 Gilbert Street |
There was no sale, Lopez said, and
he was not sure about the current status of the house.
Real estate sales records show 64
Gilbert St. was bought in July 2006 for $415,000 by Elizabeth Sanchez. Lender
GMC Mortgage LLC first filed an order of notice to foreclose in December 2007,
and received a judgment in May. The property was purchased in May for $195,000
by Haider Nasir, according to real estate records. Attempts to contact Nasir
with questions about his plans for the property were unsuccessful.
Another Gilbert Street resident said
he fears the value of his house, bought in 2006 for
$265,000, is less today,
despite an overhaul of the plumbing system. "We bought this home to gain
equity and right now I think I have lost more than I put in, which I find
really disheartening," said the 37-year-old homeowner, who asked that his
name not be printed. "I look down a few houses from me and see abandoned
property; why would someone want to move in here?"
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| Many trucks and vehicles at 25 Gilbert Street. This was the case with a number of other properties on Gilbert Street. |
He said he feared that speaking
publicly about the issue would inflame tensions in town because several of the
foreclosed homeowners were Brazilian immigrants. "I love living in a
diverse neighborhood; I am not blaming the people in the houses. But back in
2006, if I had seen a foreclosure sign here, I would have changed my mind"
about buying.
Framingham officials might have
prevented some of the problem by monitoring construction on the street more
closely, and stepping in when overextended homeowners were cutting corners on
proper permitting, Lewis contends.
More than one of the four Gilbert
Street houses appear to have lost value as a result of improperly permitted
renovations, in addition to the other foreclosure problems, acknowledged
Framingham building inspector Michael Foley.
Foley said he sympathizes with the
plight of residents in the wake of the foreclosure crisis, but he maintains
that municipal officials with limited staffing cannot possibly monitor the nuts
and bolts of every single house project. He said his department didn't know the
extent of the problems with the Gilbert Street houses until it was too late.
"I don't believe it's the
town's fault," Foley said. "Neighbors know far more about the
neighborhoods than the people in Town Hall, and they need to keep us informed
about what's happening that's not right."
Foley's three-person department
keeps a database of Framingham properties under foreclosure action. They try to
monitor the buildings, even running nighttime inspections looking for
after-hours candlelight in vacant buildings.
"We don't know these people.
But we have seen many, many situations of people who have hopes and dreams that
shatter when the money isn't there anymore," he said. "What change
happened in their lives where they couldn't finish what they started?"
Foley said accountability for some
of the more decrepit-looking properties is not as simple as it would seem.
Efforts by officials to locate the
Silvas, the last listed owners of 37-39 Gilbert, have been unsuccessful, and
the town - probably due to a paperwork backlog from state and federal efforts
to slow down foreclosures - is still unable to determine who owns the property
and is responsible for its upkeep, said Foley.
Town officials would like to head
off similar situations in the future. Foreclosure prevention is the goal of
several local and state efforts, including the HOPE Now program operated by the
South Middlesex Opportunity Council Inc., a regional antipoverty social
services organization.
In Framingham, 64 families are
enrolled in the program, which helps struggling homeowners negotiate terms with
lenders.
More than 80 percent of the
program's clients are owner- occupants, and 60 percent had a sudden reduction
in income from problems such as illness, job loss, divorce, or death in the
family, said the director of SMOC's Housing Services Center, Ozzy Diagne. Less
than one-third are owners of investment property, or families who refinanced
with adjustable-rate or balloon loans, he said.
Charles Gagnon, the nonprofit
organization's chief operating officer, said suddenly abandoning a house and a
neighborhood is sadly commonplace.
"The people we see who face
foreclosure get so scared, they grab what they need and send the keys to the
bank. There is tremendous panic and shame. Going into foreclosure has serious
psychological ramifications for everyone involved," he said.
Foley, the building inspector, said
that despite the difficulty of the market, and worries of people who live near
one - or several - foreclosed houses, Framingham homeowners should remember
that the properties are a minute part of the town's "very stable"
housing stock.
Of the foreclosed properties on the
books last week, about one-third were in some sort of negotiated transactions,
though many at 30 to 50 percent less than their assessed value, he said.
"That's a positive thing, that
inventory is moving," Foley said. "I don't have a crystal ball. But
there is interest that wasn't here four months ago, so I am very
optimistic."