Swaths of Middle TN feel mortgage stress

Losing two jobs in the last two years has made paying even a modest mortgage nearly impossible for Yolanda Tucker, who has two children at home, a 12-year-old and a 16-year-old.
Unemployed since September, Tucker is living in North Nashville off a combination of unemployment insurance and child support payments, totaling about $1,200 a month, with a $780 monthly mortgage.

"I'm desperate,'' she said. "I need a job."

A tough job market and other harsh financial trends are leading more people to fall seriously behind on their mortgages across Middle Tennessee, a situation that's likely to cause even higher foreclosure rates and more lost homes as the year unfolds.

RelatedMap: Rising Tide of Late Home LoansExcel Spreadsheet: Mortgage delinquencies by ZIP code

A ZIP code-level analysis of mortgage delinquencies by research firm First American Core Logic shows wide swaths of the Nashville area under significant mortgage stress, with more than 5 percent of mortgage holders over 90 days past due on monthly payments as of December.

Some of the worst-hit areas are Antioch, La Vergne and North Nashville, where more than 8 percent of mortgage holders are seriously delinquent. With a high concentration of moderate-income homeowners with little or no savings to fall back on when hard times hit, these areas may be most likely to see large numbers of borrowers who can't pay their bills, foreclosure counselors say.

Many low- to moderate-income neighborhoods were also at the center of the subprime mortgage mess over the past couple of years as borrowers fell victim to risky mortgage schemes.

Nonprofit counselors who help cash-strapped homeowners say they've noticed a troublesome change within the past few months as problem home loans filter deeper into Middle America.

While the initial wave of homeowners in foreclosure consisted of people stuck in adjustable-rate mortgages that they could no longer afford, the past year has seen a growing number of people with fixed-rate loans and decent interest rates who stop paying their home loans after losing a job.

The Nashville area's unemployment rate in December was 9.4 percent, up from 8.9 percent the month before.

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