Pennsylvania Mortgage Defaults Afflict High-Income Owners, Too

Housing foreclosures are at a record high in Allegheny County - and it’s not just happening in poor communities.

At this week’s monthly sheriff’s sale at the county courthouse, there was one house on the block worth more than $800,000.

“[Pennsylvania mortgage] foreclosure knows no boundaries any longer. It can go from the blighted areas to the most affluent,” County Sgt. Rich Fersch said.

The foreclosure crisis is taking place for numerous reasons, mainly because of people buying over their heads, using risky mortgages and not understanding the terms associated with them.

“They think they have the money but they don’t. The terminology I use is they have champagne tastes on a beer budget,” Fersch said.

Real estate agent Jo Ann Milseky says people are buying those big houses with risky mortgage packages that require no money down and interest payments only; or they undertaken mortgage refinancing and are faced with additional debt.

She says banks and Pennsylvania mortgage broker practices have greased the skids for such hopeful, often ignorant buyers.

“I definitely think it’s the lenders - talk real fast and say you can afford this. We’ll get the mortgage for you,” Milseky said.

And some sheriff sales are due to a change of circumstances. In the irony of ironies, the house that belonged to former Chief Deputy Sheriff Dennis Skoznik went up for sheriff sale for $250,000.

The banks foreclosed on his property after he stopped making home loan payments about the time he was convicted of bribery and corruption and began taking up a new residence in prison. This was an extreme case, of course.

But it still proves that no one is immune within this housing climate.