Potomac Divide Shows Foreclosures Through Courts Slow Home-Price Recovery
The Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Washington are a lot alike, with similar populations of workers from the U.S. capital, incomes above the national average and unemployment rates below the norm.
Their housing markets are going in opposite directions.
Home prices rose 0.8 percent in Virginia last year while across the Potomac River in Maryland they fell 3.6 percent, according to data provider CoreLogic Inc. The reason is that Maryland, like 23 other states including New York and Florida , requires court approval to foreclose on delinquent homeowners, a lengthy process that has slowed comebacks across the country, said Thomas Lawler, a housing consultant and former chief economist for mortgage financier Fannie Mae. (FNMA)
“States that have dealt with foreclosures in an expeditious way, whether or not it’s good from a social perspective, appear to be recovering,” Lawler said in a telephone interview from his office in Leesburg, Virginia . “The difference is the foreclosure laws.”




They sorted, stacked and boxed items and clothing inside the home. Lane also propped up and patched the back fence, which had fallen over. About three weeks before the planned Memorial Day weekend sale, though, vandals broke in and ransacked the place.
Good stuff for reinforcing school curricula at home. Next, Friends of the Stockton Public Library. This Hammer Lane nonprofit was closed for restocking or something. Sales of its wide selection of used books benefit the public library.