NEW REPORT: Foreclosing on Ohio - Big Bank Foreclosures in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus

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Ohio is one of the hardest hit states in the nation by the foreclosure crisis. While the Buckeye State has not posted the shear volumes of foreclosures as the once-hot housing markets of California Nevada and Florida, the cumulative impact of foreclosures have weighed heavily on Ohio's housing market and its economy. Ohio is currently ranked as the 9th highest state in terms of total foreclosure activity and third highest in the Midwest behind  economically struggling Michigan and Illinois.

However, current foreclosure activity rates fail to capture the cumulative impacts of sustained foreclosure activity in the state. The fact is that the foreclosure crisis started early in Ohio and the state now has endured elevated levels of home foreclosure for over half a decade. In 2006, Ohio experienced a sizable 23.6% increase in annual home foreclosure filings and the number of filings have continued at a historically-high rate of over 80,000 filings per year.

Major Findings:

1. Nearly one out of every ten (9.6%) housing units in all residential properties throughout Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus are estimated to have received a foreclosure notice since the onset of the nation’s financial crisis in 2007.
2. Since 2009 foreclosures have resulted in an estimated total loss of $1.6 Billion in home property values for homeowners in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus’s neighborhoods.
3. The near-term costs of foreclosures in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus to local government from 2009 through 2012 include an estimated $7.8 Million in direct expenses to deal with foreclosure-related vacancies and $30 Million dollars in lost in property tax revenue due to foreclosure-related property abandonment.
4. A minimum of one out of every 17 homes (5.9% of all residential housing units) in the study area report a foreclosure -a rate equal to more than one home falling into foreclosure for every city block on average across the three city study area since the beginning of 2009.
5. There were over 20,000 homes lost to foreclosure which became bank-owned property in the 27 months study period. This figure represents 2.8% or one out of every thirty six homes in the entire study area became bank-owned property (REO) in the last 27 months -a rate equal to approximately one bank owned property for every two city blocks across Ohio’s three largest cities. 
6. The country’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and US Bank are the financial institutions with the majority of foreclosure filings in the three city study area. Together the big banks filed 57% of all home foreclosures on over 18,900 properties in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati since 2009.
7. At minimum, over one third (39%) of all homes lost to foreclosure in the study area became the property of one of the nation’s big banks. A minimum of 9,200 Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati homes have been repossessed by big banks in foreclosure auctions in the last 27 months.
8. The impact of the foreclosure crisis has had a widespread but uneven impact on Ohio’s urban communities. Hit the hardest are Ohio’s communities of color. Analysis of home foreclosure data in the cities of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus, OH shows that home foreclosure filings are on average almost three times as concentrated in communities of color than in majority white areas. In Communities of Color home foreclosure filings in the last two years occurred at more than double the rate of other communities: 5.4% of occupied housing units.
9. Since the beginning of 2009, homes have been lost to foreclosure becoming bank-owned (REO) property in majority African-American areas at three and half times the rate of neighborhoods with a relatively low African-American population. In these majority African-American communities there were on average 80 to 100 bank-owned properties per square mile.
10. The foreclosure crisis has contributed to the problems of housing vacancy in Ohio’s urban areas. Within the three city study area, bank-owned foreclosed properties were three times as more prevalent in neighborhoods with relatively high vacancy rates (22.3% or more all housing units vacant). Approximately 5% of all housing units in high vacancy neighborhoods became bank-owned since 2009, creating an estimated 10% to 30% increase in already high home vacancy rates in impacted areas of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus.