Slippery Slope of Foreclosures on Meeting House Hill

By Ryan Meehan

DORCHESTER - Lined with abandoned three-story homes, Hendry Street could be the center of housing foreclosures in Boston.

Last week, Mayor Thomas M. Menino visited Hendry Streeet to announce an initiative to stem the toll of the rising number of foreclosures in the city. His plan relies on a foreclosure intervention team that is responsible remedying the plague.

Charles Henderson, CEO of Cirvco International LLC, a real estate solutions agency, said that Hendry Street has a stigma. "No one wants to live there," he said.

After one week, Mayor Menino's intervention team has already acquired properties to eventually renovate and resell.

Other organizations, such as Cirvco, have been working to help homeowners facing foreclosure understand their options.

"We are like counselors for homeowners and inform them of things they might not know about," Sherina Hendrix, a Cirvco employee currently working with a family facing foreclosure on Hendry Street, said.

Hendrix has helped indebted homeowners with a process known as “short selling,” which involves negotiating prices with a bank to enable the owner to pay their debt at a reduced rate. She also assists residents moving and rebuilding their credit. She said that all options are explored before short selling.

“Banks are not being realistic,” Henderson said. “They hire brokers who estimate the price of homes without knowing how much it will cost to repair. What the banks don’t realize is that no one is in place to hire a contractor to fix up all the things wrong with the property.”

When it comes to investing, Henderson said potential buyers now must put down a deposit from 20-25 percent as opposed to the former 100 percent financing. Many people cannot afford to pay. Interested buyers are now both holding out and waiting for the price to drop or having “straw buyers” with good credit pay for the property for the person that could not afford it in the first place.

Jeanne DuBois, executive director of the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, said the state should secure loans for mortgage holders, because problems arise when the loans become larger than the house is worth.

The next step is to manage or renovate the houses. The sooner the houses are fixed, the sooner they can be rented. DuBois said the “gap” between the cost of construction and what a first time homebuyer can afford is growing.

“When houses around you are becoming foreclosed, you have the ripple effect – one after another. All of a sudden no house is worth what their mortgage is,” DuBois said.

The ripple phenomenon, which is exemplified by Hendry Street, breeds crime and violence. Area residents fear that due to the crisis, living near Meeting House Hill will become increasingly unsafe.