The 2008 housing crash may seem far in the past, but it remains a crushing, daily reality for many New Yorkers.
A large number of mortgages for city properties are still underwater – with loan values exceeding the market value of the home – seven years after the crash began, with black homeowners, especially those in southeast Queens, disproportionally affected, according to a new report by the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, DNAinfo reported.
“For home-owners who bought in the early 2000s,” the Center’s Leo Goldberg told DNAinfo, “white home values have recovered while black home-owners have lost net wealth in that time.”
A map accompanying the report showed the city neighborhoods where at least 10 percent of mortgages are underwater, cross-referenced with neighborhoods with large black populations. Homeowners in the Bronx are also underwater in large numbers, according to the map.
The 2007 Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act – which waived taxes on homeowners forced to sell their properties following the crisis – was extended through 2016 late last year. [DNAinfo] – Ariel Stulberg