Actually, River City is probably fine right now, but there may, in fact, be some trouble brewing in New York City’s real estate market.  Why you ask? Well, it seems that nearly 1.1 million owner-occupants in NYC and Long Island have received a pre-foreclosure notice from their mortgage servicer.  Yes, that’s right, 1.1 million owner-occupants.

But, we all know that foreclosures and auctions are down, how could this be? You would be correct if you focused exclusively on foreclosed or auctioned properties, but for some strange reason, mortgage servicers are reluctant to foreclose. According to PropertyShark, only 2,000 properties within NYC have actually been foreclosed and auctioned in 2017, and only 731 are currently scheduled as we begin this year.

The real issue here just may be the impact on the local economy. Clearly, most of these 1.1 million delinquent owners are struggling with their monthly payments. That doesn’t bode well for the local economy that depends on the consumer to demand goods and services.

Amazingly, this issue is occurring even before the impact of tax policy changes that will significantly reduce one’s ability in places like NYC to deduct property taxes.  We can only imagine how many more will join this growing list of pre-foreclosure notice owner-occupants.