NORRISTOWN PA – Pennsylvania’s governor offered financial help last week for thousands of families to buy homes with affordable loans; to assist thousands more with home closing costs; and to build hundreds of new homes. The assistance won’t be a comfort, however, to 17 Lower Pottsgrove Township property owners whose parcels were scheduled to be auctioned this Wednesday (Dec. 30, 2009) in a Montgomery County (PA) sheriff’s sale.
Gov. Edward Rendell said last Tuesday (Dec. 22, 2009) that the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, the U.S. Treasury, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac had partnered on a $1.2 billion package to:
- Supply 30-year, fixed-rate, low-interest mortgage loans to 11,000 families across the state, or 164 for each of its 67 counties;
- Expand a second loan program that lets up to 2,000 home buyers (29 per county) borrow up to $6,000 each interest-free to help make down-payments and pay for closing costs; and
- Provide $50 million in construction loans to build about 450 new homes (7 per county).
“To kick-start the housing recovery, we need to repair the damage of the past few years and again make it possible for qualified home buyers to get loans,” Rendell said. The partnership, he added, was creating programs that send “the message to existing homeowners and first-time home buyers alike … that now is a great time to buy a home in Pennsylvania.”
Meanwhile, Sheriff John P. Durante has prepared an entirely different program to start Wednesday at 1 p.m. in Courtroom A at the county courthouse in Norristown. Durante’s office is charged with selling hundreds of homes that have been reclaimed by lenders under foreclosure proceedings.
Of the 17 originally scheduled for sale in Lower Pottsgrove, according to the sheriff’s website, only three were still available to bidders as of 9:30 p.m. yesterday (Monday, Dec. 28, 2009). They are located at 1219 Valley Rd., 2348 Brown St., and 20 Creekside Dr., with amounts owed to lenders ranging between $106,000 and $248,000.
Sales of the remaining 14 were either stayed, or postponed by court orders or bankruptcy filings, until as late as Feb. 24 (2010). They are located at 1 Creekside Dr., 1258 N. Charlotte St., 228 S. Park Rd., 485 N. Pleasant View Rd., 3608 Walnut Ridge Estates, 73 Timberview Dr., 2602 Terraced Hills Ct., 1482 Oakdale Dr., 1442 Sanatoga Rd., 1129 Oakdale Dr., 1605 N. Valley Rd., 97 Brookview Ln., 2702 Walnut Ridge Estates, and 244 S. Pleasant View Rd., with amounts owed to lenders ranging from $5,800 to $360,000.
There is no guarantee any sale will occur. Postponements or stays likely were because owners and their lenders are at work on, or completed, agreements that bring a property out of foreclosure or allow it to be sold privately.
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To see someone lose their home for small amounts is a travesty and an indicator that financial institutions are not using monies we the taxpayers provided for the purpose of relieving these situations.
With 600 Lower Pottsgrove residents unemployed we should be doing all we can not have these types of losses for families occur.
I’d like our own township personnel to take extraordinary measures to contain the costs of the township and its impact on our taxes. With many on fixed incomes or limited incomes taxes are a significant burden for many.
Lower taxes, not constant growth and increases, are in keeping with these hard times. Our school board should heed this lesson as well. Let’s make do and repair and improve as much as we can before we expend monies on new facilities and improved salaries. I know many of us taxpayers have not seen a more than few percent increase in many years.