ELLENTON — Suzanne Stilley moved into the Covered Bridge Estates subdivision just four months ago, but she’s already seen how foreclosures are affecting her mother’s neighborhood.
“I’ve noticed a change,” said Stilley, who moved from North Carolina to take care of her mom. “I’ve watched people clearing out. It’s a shame. All these empty houses, it’s hurting all of us.”
She needs to look no farther than homes surrounding their house on French Creek Court, where weeds and overgrown grass dot the lawns of vacant homes where neighbors once lived.
A house across the street went into foreclosure last year. The house next to it went in April. And two doors down, a third fell into foreclosure last month.
The last one was among the 517 foreclosure suits that lenders filed in May, according to the Manatee County Clerk of Court’s office. While below March’s record 608 filings and the 526 filed in April, it was the fifth straight month that lenders have initiated 500-plus foreclosure proceedings.
In all, lenders have filed 2,694 foreclosure suits so far this year — 23 percent ahead of last year’s record pace.
Properties that fell into foreclosure last month ranged from mobile homes to a $2 million mansion in northwest Bradenton, and from builders’ vacant lots to proposed but stalled residential projects encompassing hundreds of acres.
Among them were 13 houses in Covered Bridge Estates, including five along French Creek Court.
The subdivision has been hit particularly hard by the surge in foreclosures: Lenders have filed at least 125 foreclosure suits in the community since 2007, according to the Bradenton Herald’s foreclosure database.
That translates into more than a quarter of the subdivision’s 477 completed houses.
Most of those were bought during the 2004-06 housing boom, when investors, would-be flippers and panicked first-time homebuyers flocked to the market. That demand, largely fueled by cheap, easy-to-get loans, sent home prices skyrocketing.
But the market quickly cooled, driving prices and home values down. More homebuyers also began defaulting on their mortgages, many of them unable to pay the higher monthly payments when their adjustable-rate loans reset.
The trend continued as the economy worsened and job losses mounted.
The result has been foreclosed properties dotting neighborhoods like Covered Bridge Estates, leaving Stilley and others still living there feeling angry.
“People never should have gotten these loans,” she said of the subprime, balloon and adjustable-rate loans that fueled the homebuying spree. “These people were irresponsible, and now we’re paying the price for it.”
A Herald analysis of May foreclosure filings also found:
n Creekwood East Corporate Park on Lena Road and the Greenbrook Village area of Lakewood Ranch had the second-highest number of properties falling into foreclosure, with 10 each.
n Slightly more than half — 51.2 percent — of properties being foreclosed upon were homesteaded, the fifth consecutive month that primary homes have outnumbered seasonal and rental homes.
Duane Marsteller, transportation/growth and development reporter, can be reached at 745-7080, ext. 2630.
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