Experts Advocate Stabilizing Neighborhoods with Short Sales
Experts Advocate Stabilizing Neighborhoods with Short Sales
“Foreclosures are going to go up before they go down,” according to Craig Nickerson, president of the National Community Stabilization Trust.
Nickerson says estimates put foreclosure tallies at 850,000 this year, as high as 1.5 million in 2013, and then back to the levels we’re at today by 2015.
With all these distressed properties potentially making their way to an already stressed marketplace, Nickerson, along with a panel of industry professionals at the inaugural MPact Conference advocated for bulk short sales.
The panel discussion centered around neighborhood stabilization initiatives and HUD’s $7 billion program created to facilitate the rehabilitation of properties in communities challenged with high levels of foreclosures and property vacancies – aptly named the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP).
“Foreclosure prevention by itself is not going to [be the] cure” for the housing crisis, Hala Farid, deputy director of Citigroup’s Office of Homeownership Preservation, told those attending the standing-room-only session.
Farid says Citi is devising a procedure where NSP program participants will have access to escalated points of contact to expedite the short sale process in support of neighborhood stabilization efforts.
Francis Martinez Myers, president of Employee Transfer Corporation (ETC) and ETCREO Management, said the industry is “on the cusp” of utilizing short sales as a viable means of stabilization, “but it’s not without its challenges,” she added.
Drew Auker
