Rural communities hit by foreclosures (family loses dairy farm they owned for 21 years)

[Kadie]

Rural communities hit by foreclosures
By EVELYN NIEVES, Associated Press Writer
31 minutes ago

snip...
Only six people showed up for the foreclosure auction, Janice Pimentel and her son Nick included. By chance, the Pimentels' dairy farm was the first property offered.

The auctioneer, a young man in aviator sunglasses and blue jeans, read their address and paused for bids. When none came, the Joe T and Janice R Pimentel Dairy Farm, 21 years in the life of the family, officially became the property of its main creditor, a local lender.

snip...
The Pimentels' farm was once a fixture in California's Central Valley, which is best known as the world's fruit basket and, these days, may have with the highest concentration of foreclosures in the country. Many of the properties lost to foreclosure around here are in rural towns that are changing, perhaps forever, because of the nation's housing meltdown.

snip...
Rural residents often have fewer banking institutions to choose from than city dwellers, and can fall victim to high interest rates and predatory lending practices. But precise mortgage statistics for rural areas are hard to come by, because while large banks in metropolitan areas are required under federal law to report lending activity, many small, rural financial institutions are not.

snip...
How they lost their farm, once a thriving business with some 200 cows, is not a simple sub-prime mortgage story. It has to do with a drop in the price of milk, a spike in the cost of feed, some bad luck and, yes, a five-year refinance loan with an interest rate of 12 percent.

On top of their financial problems, in 2007, Joe's father developed cancer. With such a heavy personal and financial burden, the Pimentels could not give the farm the attention it required.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080403/ap_on_re_us/rural_foreclosures_1

Joe and Janice Pimentel stand near a barn on their dairy near Atwater, Calif., March 7, 2008. The pair lost the dairy, they had owned for 21 years, when overwhelming bills forced a foreclosure sale of the property.
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)



Nick Pimentel pets 'Star' one of his family's two horses on their dairy near Atwater, Calif. Friday, March 7, 2008. Nick's parents, Janice and Joe Pimentel were forced to sale the dairy, they had owned for 21 years, when overwhelming bills forced a foreclosure sale of the property.
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

[brentspeak]

1. Welcome to the Great New Depression

s/t

[damntexdem]

2. The vultures will be delighted.

Rural America lies dead in the dirt.