Neighborhood Impacts of Overmortgaged Buildings

Commissioned and funded by Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise), The Impact of Multifamily Foreclosures and Over-Mortgaging in Neighborhoods in New York City examines more than 1,100 multifamily buildings across Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. It highlights the need to monitor multifamily housing stock and coordinate public and private sector intervention so that the stock may be improved, returned to responsible owners, and preserved for another generation of tenants.

Additional findings from the study include:

• For buildings within a 500-foot radius of an over-mortgaged building, the average percentage increase in ERP liens per building was 198%. However, for buildings outside of the 500-foot radius, the average percentage decrease in ERP charges was 39%.
• Buildings within a 500-foot radius had $1,892,142 more in ERP charges in 2010 than they would have had if they were not near an over-mortgaged or foreclosed property.
• The average per-building percentage increase in Class C housing code violations, the most serious, was 13.7% between 2008 and 2010 in buildings located within 250 feet of an over-mortgaged building. The average increase per building outside a 250-feet radius was only 6.3%.