Live in the now, Mayor Sheila Dixon. Drop the city of Baltimore?s lawsuit against Wells Fargo for making bad loans, and start marketing foreclosed homes. This is not the time to look back. It?s a moment to seize as a prime opportunity to “Live Baltimore.”
Blaming others for the city?s problems is a strategy that repeatedly fails. This is not to say that banks should bear no responsibility in the mortgage meltdown they helped to create by selling loans they backed, often without proper screening, weeks after originating them. This offloaded risk onto the rest of us who are now bailing out irresponsible homeowners and lenders.
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But going after one bank will not solve the city?s housing woes. Court records show Wells Fargo foreclosed on 313 homes in Baltimore City since 2000 ? a small fraction of the 3,349 mortgages that entered arrears in 2007 alone, according to a recent report. It?s an even smaller fraction of the 5,000 the city?s Department of Housing and Community Development expects to enter foreclosure in 2008. Last week the city responded to Wells Fargo?s March request to dismiss the case, filed in January.
If Dixon really wants to help homeowners, she will negotiate with them on back taxes and water bills. Wells Fargo claims the city foreclosed on 19,000 properties since 2000. Maybe without Baltimore?s extortionate taxes and profligate spending, more beleaguered homeowners would be able to make their mortgage payments.
Collecting a fraction of what?s owed and keeping houses occupied is better than forcing taxpayers to pay for upkeep and increased crime that follows abandoned property. The city will not say how much it expects to lose in the upcoming year from foreclosures, but it has said it expects fewer home sales and about $30 million less in recordation and transfer taxes in the coming year as a result.
So now is not the time to point fingers and enrich lawyers. It?s time to hustle. Lower housing prices across the state and region mean homes once out of reach for many people are becoming affordable. In April the median sale price for homes around the region fell almost 5 percent. In Baltimore City, the median sale price fell about 2.4 percent to $155,000.
C?mon, Mayor Dixon. Why not make the city even more of a bargain by following through on recommendations by your Blue Ribbon Committee on Taxes and Fees and cut property taxes in half? More tax revenue requires more residents. This is the way to attract them and to make us a city on the hill rather than a city in the sewer.
Let?s leave behind more than 50 years of shedding residents and make Baltimore a net contributor to state tax rolls rather than a constant beneficiary of Marylanders? aid.
