44-Month Study on Foreclosed Houses for Sale in Long Island
May 16th, 2009 by 
Joseph Smith
In a 44-month New York Times study of over 218,000 foreclosure filings and foreclosed houses for sale in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey and Western Connecticut from 2005 to August 2008, the researchers found that Long Island had over 31,000 houses in default or have become foreclosed houses for sale.
With a foreclosure rate of 3.7 percent, Long Island is among the worst hit by foreclosures in the region researched by The Times. Its foreclosure rate surpassed the 3.3 percent foreclosure rate for the entire region.
According to recent bank report on loan delinquencies, at least six percent of homeowners on Long Island are already behind in payments by three months or more. Housing officials worry that the delinquency rate will rise further, as the default rate was only 3.5 percent in the first months of 2008.
The epicenter of foreclosure filings and foreclosed houses for sale on Long Island is Roosevelt, where over 19 percent of homes have been hit with foreclosure filings. Roosevelt has a population of 15,930.
Nine communities on Long Island had over 10 percent of houses in foreclosure or already have become foreclosed houses for sale. All of these communities are mostly populated by minorities based on the 2000 census, except two – Mastic Beach and Islandia.
Suffolk County is the hardest hit among counties in the region in terms of number of foreclosures, with over 19,000 homes in foreclosure or turned into foreclosed houses for sale. With a foreclosure rate of 4.3 percent, Suffolk is sixth in the rate ranking in the region.
In 2005, foreclosures were only found in Brentwood, Islandia, Central Islip, Wyandach and the Farmingdale-Amityville area. In 2008, foreclosures have spread to Mastic, Shirley, the Ridge area near Ronkonkoma and Bay Shore. Foreclosure rates grew by more than three times around Central Islip and Brentwood.
In Nassau County, the foreclosure rate of 3.1 percent was a bit lower than the region’s rate of 3.3 percent and the wealthier neighborhoods in its northern part had low foreclosure rates. But foreclosure numbers in Hempstead, Elmont, Freeport and Roosevelt are among the biggest in the region.
According to a First American CoreLogic’s study, the pace of foreclosures and foreclosed houses for sale in Nassau and Suffolk is higher than the rates in many counties in the region.
