SAUK VILLAGE HOUSING HISTORY
By Joseph Wiszowaty
SAUK VILLAGE | Sauk Village has faced many housing hurdles in the past 56 year history. In 1975, Sauk Village faced some tough economic times as area mills closed leaving many young homeowners and their families scrambling to make their mortgage payments. Many homebuyers purchased their first homes in the late 1950s and 1960s using their Veterans Administration loan guarantee with virtually no money down.
The late former Mayor Roger Theisen walked along Theisen
Avenue in 1975, named in his honor in the Bell Air section, where brand new
homes sat vacant for more than two years with no buyers. The Village was also
battling the Cook County Forest Preserve District at the time which literally landlocked
the Village’s eastward expansion. That
began a stall in housing expansion and by the early 1980s 20% interest rates
pretty much killed it.
A longtime resident said “When I moved here in 1982, the
house we purchased on was 3 years old. We bought from a young professional
couple. Back then prevailing interest rate for mortgages were at 15%, but
because we had just sold our first home, we were able to "assume" the
couple's home at a low interest rate of 8.75%”.
Rising interest rates, unemployment and an economic downturn essentially
stopped new housing in Sauk Village until the 1990s
Fast forward to the 2007, easy lending terms where a homebuyer could fog a mirror and get a mortgage led to a national mortgage meltdown. The Village’s housing expansion reached its pinnacle as Deer Creek homes were selling for the upper $200s and homes in Lincoln Meadows were reaching $300,000 and many in the older parts of the Village were well over $100,000. Home values plummeted and longtime owners began to literally walk away from their homes. Many older homeowners are still underwater owing more than $100,000 on homes valued at $50,000 and many still walk away. Sauk Village has not been exempt from the exodus and housing crisis.
Many long-time residents of the Indiana Hills subdivision wonder what is to become of Sauk Village. “We have lived here for 50 years” a longtime resident said. “We are so far under water on this house, we have no choice but to walk away. We will never get what we owe on it” the homeowners said. “We worked our entire life and when our house needed work we refinanced and put the money back into the home. We weren’t irresponsible, we thought we were investing in a home was a safe move. We were wrong” they said.
From 2008 to 2012, one of the only tools offered through the Village were NACA seminars. NACA stands for Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America is a private organization which set out to help homeowners under water renegotiate their mortgage terms through loan modifications. Since NACA set out many national lenders, through legislation, have been offering Home Affordable Refinance Programs (HARP) and Home Affordable Modification Programs (HAMP).
Lenders have been incentivized and loans guaranteed by the Federal Government for HARPs and HAMPs. In fact many major lenders have even forgiven mortgage loans and offered cash payments to some who lost their homes through a national settlement.
Sauk Village faces similar housing challenges today. Vacant homes, foreclosures and investors have caused property values to plummet to record lows not seen since 1960. While many areas of the nation have seen modest gains in property values and many areas have recovered to pre-2008 values, Sauk Village lags way behind. Some homes still are selling for $10,000 which have been keeping values low.
 |
| Sauk Village's "Rainbow" Welcome Sign 1978 |
No comments:
Post a Comment