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Real estate foreclosure listings in Redford, Michigan continue to grow, based on data from the Redford Township Business Association.

According to Robert Miller, deputy supervisor for Redford, around 2,000 homes will be foreclosed this year in the area. Just like other places in Michigan, Redford has been following the foreclosure trend in the state.

In the July to September quarter, more than 37,000 residential properties throughout the state were hit with foreclosure postings, with almost 15,000 already in the foreclosure books of lenders. With the continued increase in foreclosures in the state, Michigan was ranked eighth in the third quarter based on foreclosure rates.

To help contain foreclosure distressed properties in Redford, Thomas Krause, head and founder of the Redford business association, and other members committed to help distressed families avoid foreclosures. They planned to work with Bruce Kaufman, a mortgage restructuring specialist who owns HHAF Systems LLC and who has been negotiating loan modification successfully with lenders.

Early this year, Redford officials tried to launch a foreclosure prevention program that involved HHAF Systems, but the program fell through. The program would have prevented distressed properties from getting into real estate foreclosure listings with only around $500 in fees per mortgage modification and with the fees getting paid by state or federal agencies.

Even if the initial effort to work with Kaufman collapsed, the township has been supporting the plans of RTBA and encouraging business leaders and other associations to help families in Redford save their homes from foreclosure.

To help start the modifications, the association will be conducting fund raising efforts. In November, RTBA will hold a fundraising event at the Timber Wolf Tavern.

Bill Kanbilian, founder of Little Bill?s Trophies, explained that RTBA decided to help solve the problem of foreclosure homes not only to help families, but also to help themselves. Business people know that if communities are overloaded with repo properties and families abandon communities, they will be left with no customers to serve.

Additionally, values of properties will deteriorate, including the values of their office spaces and their business spaces.

Kaufman of HHAF said that he has reduced his mortgage modification fee to only $150, a sharp drop from the usual $500 charged by loan modification firms in the area.

Both Kaufman and Krause reiterated that launching the program to contain real estate foreclosure listings in Redford requires determination to face challenges, but they need to do it to save their township from deterioration.

Bargain repo properties for sale are in abundance in Detroit, according to brokers and realtors in the city.

Based on the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index for 20 major cities over the past months, Detroit is among the cities where home prices have dropped substantially since the downturn began and is among those which are still struggling from declining home values. The median distressed home sales price has fallen to a low of $8,000 last August, far below the $59,700 median price in August 2005. Nearly 25 percent of the more than 4,000 houses available for sale in September were foreclosures and total home sales dropped by almost 20 percent compared to sales in September last year.

Because of the high unemployment in the city, people have left and now, there are only around 900,000 residents, far below the 2-million population in the 1950s.

Among the neighborhoods thought to be immune from foreclosures because of the high number of residents who are judges, lawyers, auto-industry executives and educational professionals is Indian Village. Here, investors and first time home buyers can find a lot of bargain repo properties for sale.

Because many of these professionals were laid off and many of them were unable to convince their lenders to reduce their monthly payments, many were forced to let their homes go into foreclosure. Now, about 15 percent of the 350 houses in Indian Village are foreclosures.

To save Indian Village from the deterioration and collapse that occurred in other Detroit neighborhoods, residents in the area took action and decided to find a realtor committed to the neighborhood and help sell the foreclosed properties in the neighborhood to families and individuals who will live in the properties and help preserve the neighborhood.

The residents found Joy Santiago, who arrived in Detroit in the 1980s from Ann Arbor and started working in real estate in the 1990s, focusing on Indian Village.

Since then, Santiago has been successful in creating buzz about the neighborhood, especially its lower-priced mansions. She has organized bus tours where she talks about the backgrounds and histories of the homes she showed.

Among these houses is a four-bedroom Colonial that was built in 1925 but still sturdy. It is being offered at only $39,000. Another is an 8-bedroom Colonial mansion which is being offered at only $189,000. These are only two of many bargain foreclosed properties for sale being offered in Detroit.

Industry experts are advising distressed homeowners in South Carolina to seek help now to save their distressed properties from being placed on listings of foreclosed houses. Funding for the Family Services Inc., an agency based in North Charleston that serves as the state’s conduit for mortgage counseling services, is expected to run out before the year ends.

The agency has been receiving federal grants to be used for foreclosure counseling. However, the increasing unemployment rate and mortgage defaults in the state are taking its toll on the agency’s funding.

Recently, the agency received $775,000 emergency funds, about 50 percent of what it usually receives. According to the agency, it needs to apply for more federal money and to find other fund sources in order to continue offering free mortgage counseling services to distressed homeowners who want to save their properties from listings of foreclosed houses.

Debbie Kidd of the Family Services said that the current situation is nerve-wracking and there is a great possibility that the agency will experience a shortage of funds by early next year. But she still encourages distressed homeowners who are in default and want to save their homes from foreclosures to contact the agency for free counseling help.

The agency uses the federal grant it receives to pay for the 22 foreclosure counselors on its staff. These counselors negotiate for reduced mortgage payments for struggling borrowers. Since 2007, the agency has already helped about 6,130 troubled borrowers across South Carolina.

Mayor Joe Riley said that many homeowners may save their houses from foreclosures and remain in their homes by working out their loan problems through counseling. He added that Family Services is providing good credible honest counseling for free.

Federal lawmakers have issued three rounds of grants for a total of $410 million to help homeowners hurdle the economic downturn and save their homes from foreclosures. The latest round of nearly $48 million funds could be the last federal grant that would be received by foreclosure counseling services for a while.

Homeownership advocacy groups are expecting emergency funding for mortgage counseling programs across the state and the rest of the country to simmer down as the overall economy improves. However, the groups are expecting foreclosures to continue to be serious problem in Charleston for the next two years.

On its part, Family Services plans to advocate for additional funding to continue providing assistance to homeowners who want to save their properties from listings of repossessed houses.