Bank-owned homes and abandoned properties -- foreclosures-in-waiting -- are at epidemic levels in Washington's suburban neighborhoods where the housing crash hit the hardest.
And while much of Washington is enjoying a housing recovery and climbing prices, neighborhoods in parts of Prince William and Prince George's counties, especially, are being left behind.
On L Street in Fairmount Heights, Belen Gillespie is bordered by two empty houses to her left and one across the street. Gillespie said her great-uncle left the home across the street, now boarded up and in disarray, to his daughter in his will.
"It's been empty ever since," she said.
A calendar from Palmer Liquor on the home's peeling kitchen wall is turned to October 2007 -- the end of the housing boom.
Down the street, Claudette Joyner, who is caring for her mother, said neglect has become common in neighborhoods like this one.
"You have a lot of older residents who have lived here for decades," she said. "They leave their homes to their children [who] can't always manage."
Experts say it's difficult to accurately track abandoned homes, partly because the national investigation into the foreclosure process brought on by the robo-signing scandal has slowed lenders' default timelines. According to recent data from LPS Mortgage Monitor, banks in Maryland take nearly a year to foreclose on delinquent homeowners. In Virginia, lenders take nine months.
"These are the forerunners of foreclosures," said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosures. "There's still a lot of homes in trouble or distressed that haven't entered the foreclosure process yet."
| Abandoned properties by the numbers | |||
| The national foreclosure rate before the crash was one in 1,600 homes. | |||
| January foreclosure rate | All properties in foreclosure | All vacant* properties | |
| Prince George's County | 1 in 457 | 4,233 | 24,140 |
| Hyattsville | 1 in 474 | 695 | -- |
| Prince William County | 1 in 488 | 3,277 | 6,330 |
| Woodbridge | 1 in 473 | 1,549 | -- |
| Maryland | 1 in 1,503 | 13,749 | 222,403 |
| Virginia | 1 in 1,098 | 27,315 | 308,881 |
| *Vacant includes seasonally occupied properties | |||
| Source: RealtyTrac, 2010 Census | |||
Prince William ramped up outdoor inspections of homes that had transferred to a lender in an effort to ensure the lien holders weren't letting properties fall into disarray, said Michelle Casciato, the county budget director. The effort has slowed over the past year as foreclosures decreased.
Prince George's officials plan to use federal funds to acquire foreclosed properties in targeted areas and is pushing a fee that would help maintain neglected homes.
In January, more than 700 homes went into foreclosure in Prince George's County, nearly five times the total of Montgomery County. The county had the state's highest foreclosure rate last month and was more than twice the rate of second-place Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore.
Prince William County had the third-highest foreclosure rate of Virginia counties in January and the highest in Northern Virginia.
Both counties' rates were similar to the national average of one in every 497 homes.
Census data on vacant properties, although it includes seasonal properties, shows the potential effect of abandoned properties. One of every 14 homes were vacant in Prince George's County in 2010. In Prince William, the rate was one in every 24 homes.
"It gives you a small taste of what you might experience if you drove through some of the country's hardest hit areas like Las Vegas [or] Phoenix," Blomquist said. "Driving through those cities, it almost feels like a ghost town."
In Prince George's, Hyattsville and Upper Marlboro account for nearly one-third of the county's 4,233 total filings, according to RealtyTrac. Northern Virginia towns suffering the most are Manassas and Woodbridge, which hold more than three-quarters of Prince William's 3,277 foreclosed homes.
County demographer Bob Vaughan said Manassas -- with a foreclosure rate of one in every nine homes -- was especially reliant on the housing industry both for employment and growth.
"That probably made up a large share of foreclosed properties we see now," Vaughan said.
Both states have assistance programs, such as classes in Virginia and mandatory court mediation in Maryland. But experts note Maryland's slower foreclosure process means Prince George's County will lag behind Prince William's recovery.
