It?s troubling that home foreclosures are up nearly 17 percent in Maryland from the same time last year, according to a new report.
It?s not a new phenomenon. In earlier reports, RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, showed that for 2005; Maryland home foreclosures rose 117 percent, the seventh-fastest percentage in the United States. Nationally, home foreclosures rose 25 percent in 2005.
This is happening in a state with the fourth-highest per capita income in the country and unemployment registering 4 percent, compared to a national average of 4.6 percent.
Mortgages with fluctuating interest rates are partially to blame. When rates were low, people could afford bigger homes. As rates have risen, payments for some have become a stretch or impossible. Buyers ? and mortgage brokers ? should have known better.
But property taxes don?t help either. The city could help many struggling homeowners by cutting them. Property taxes register $2.308 of every $100 of assessed value in Baltimore City ? more than twice that of surrounding counties, all of which generally have better schools and some of which have smoother roads on which to drive.
More foreclosures won?t help city tax coffers. Neither do tax rates that push people to buy in the suburbs. C?mon, Mayor Marton O?Malley, cutting property taxes would be “leadership that works.”
