A new wave of foreclosures is hammering middle-class homeowners in Queens.
Southeastern Queens neighborhoods such as St. Albans have been reeling since 2008, when the first wave of the foreclosure crisis hit, ensnaring many low-income homeowners with subprime loans.
Filings fell in 2011, but a dramatic spike in the 2012 foreclosure rate is spreading the pain to middle-class residents with higher-quality loans.
These homeowners should be the backbone of a stable middle class in Queens, but they’ve been undone by high unemployment and unyielding bankers.
The new face of foreclosures includes couples of whom one spouse loses a job — and the only replacement is part-time work for lower pay. Many owners of two-family homes are falling behind on mortgage payments after their tenants become unemployed.
“At the beginning it was first-time homebuyers and loans that were unaffordable,” said Franklin Romeo, deputy director of the Homeowner & Consumer Rights Project”¨ at Queens Legal Services. “I’ve seen the crisis move into the middle class.”
Foreclosures jumped 19 percent in New York City and 164 percent in Queens in 2012 versus 2011, as The Post reported last week. Four of the hardest-hit sections of Queens — St. Albans, Rosedale, Cambria Heights and Queens Village — saw foreclosure rates more than double, according to RealtyTrac. More than 2 percent of housing units in those areas are in foreclosure, outstripping the national average of 1.39 percent.
“Now everybody is getting impacted,” said Elizabeth Lynch, staff attorney at MFY Legal Services. “Homeowners . . . with good income to support a mortgage [encounter] a hardship for a couple of months and can’t get back on track.”