As CSU's Brian Mikelbank looked at mortgages made in the city of Cleveland between 2003 and the fall of 2007, there were numbers he came across that so surprised him he rechecked his calculations. Among those were figures from Argent Mortgage company. The now defunct Orange County lender shot to the top in Cleveland home loan sales in 2004 and 2005. Mikelbank compared Argent's loan amounts to the County's assessed values of the homes those loans purchased. The median loan to home value ratio was above 100 percent, and in some Cleveland wards as high as 190 percent. Mikelbank says having little money invested in a house makes it easier for a borrower to walk away.
Brian Mikelbank: Lenders that were virtually unknown in this city ten years ago came in and made loans that left Cleveland in a difficult situation while the lending performance of the banks we are more familiar with was actually pretty good.
Mikelbank also found that resale prices for Cleveland houses that have gone through foreclosure have nosedived since 2003, falling 94 percent to a median price of about $5000. But, Mikelbank says sale prices for houses that have not gone through foreclosure have been much more steady. Since 2003, median sale prices for non-foreclosed homes on Cleveland's west side have remained steady and dropped by 12.5% on the city's east side. But Mikelbank says the number of sales for non-foreclosed homes has stalled while sales of bank-owned bargains has grown. Mhari Saito, 90.3