By Bill Webb

CNNMoney just reported that there are nearly 1.5 million homes currently in foreclosure in the United States. That's one for every 84 households: 1.2 percent of all Americans are in danger of losing there homes. And that's not counting the ones who are struggling to make payments. It appears that Michael Jackson's estate isn't the only one with issues.

Where is it the worst? Well according to CNN, the foreclosure leader is California with one foreclosure for every 34 households. Nevada had an astounding one for every 16 houses. So how did Illinois fare? We come in at number eight on CNN's hit list with one foreclosed home out of every 76 households: a 1.3 percent clip.

So how is Frankfort holding up? I found a list of 20 foreclosed homes with a Frankfort address. With the roughly 3,577 households here, that's only .6 percent of our homes in trouble — small comfort to those 20 homeowners, but still not bad.

A more telling statistic is the number of homes up for sale here, sort of a measure of overall angst. According to Coldwell Banker's online index, there are 694 homes up for sale in Frankfort. I didn't have the time to see if any of these were duplicate listings, but for the sake of argument let's assume there aren't any. So 19 percent of all Frankfort homes are on the market or one in every five.

And let's not even go into the commercial market.

What does all this tell us? It says that we are not immune to the financial meltdown, that many of the 17,981 residents are feeling the pinch, that even our median income level of $95,260 isn't nearly enough, and that NIMBY doesn't stand for we think it stands for: Not In My Back Yard now means Now Inside My Back Yard.

And they say this is going to get worse?

What we need are some positive signs, some feel good stories, or some way to stop the rabbits from eating my potted plants. I mean the whole of Frankfort is green as a fresh twenty dollar bill and they have to eat the potted flowers? What's the matter with the mustard weed in the field they live in? Eat what's in your back yard, not mine. I'll have to research that field to see if it's on the list. Maybe even the rabbits are looking to relocate.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, looking for positive signs. It's positive that the corner of Route 30 and Wolf is under destruction — I mean construction. It's going to be really, really wide. It's positive that our school system is well rated in the state. And it's positive that this will not last forever.

Oh, and the village finally fixed the Leaning Tower of Webb, our skewed mailbox that sank when the water main sprang a leak. That's a real positive. Of course, such feelings of level mail delivery and wide intersections don't often last — even though I am happy that the letters in the box aren't asking for the house keys. So to keep positive, I often try to sleep a lot since this keeps me from bothering the family — trust me they appreciate it. While I am awake, and in order to keep from talking too much, I try to find different ways to word acronyms

...continued on http://www.frankfortstation.com/Articles-c-2009-07-24-197976.112113_NIMBY_Financially_Speaking.html
 


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