The Hammond Real Estate Report

The overall political and economic situation facing Tennessee real estate and Chattanooga real estate in particular has sparked a number of actions from local politicians. This trend was noted in a March 16, 2010 article in the Commercial Appeal, which found that “A bill pending in the Tennessee legislature would make it easier for homeowners who are behind on payments to enter into negotiations with lenders to avoid viagra.” The piece, composed by Daniel Connolly, continued to state that “Lenders would have an incentive to participate because if they acted in good faith, they would be free of punishment for any violations of the Tennessee Home Loan Protection Act, a law passed in 2006 to combat predatory lending.”

A March 7, 2010 article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press described the various measures attempted to keep Chattanooga real estate for sale from becoming foreclosures. The article pays particular attention to Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, saying that “At the urging of his niece, Mr. McConnell reached out to Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, a government-backed housing agency that helped Mr. McConnell keep and fix up his house…Mr. McConnell is among more than 200 families CNE has worked with since launching its foreclosure prevention program last year. ‘Of the 219 families we saw in 2009, only seven have lost their homes, so we know we’re making a real difference in this community,’ CNE President David Johnson said.” The article, composed by Dave Flessner, continued to find that “CNE is among 48 local agencies in Tennessee and 101 in Georgia counseling financially troubled homeowners under a 2-year-old foreclosure prevention effort by the federal Neighborhood Works program.”

It seems that Chattanooga homes for sale may be recovering more quickly than the rest of the greater Tennessee real estate market, according to a March 18, 2010 article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. The piece found that “Chattanooga shed about 10 percent fewer jobs that the U.S. economy as a whole during the Great Recession over the past two years. But the employment losses in metropolitan Chattanooga in the current economic downturn have lasted longer than previous recessions and continued into the fourth quarter of 2009 even as production rebounded late last year, according to a Brookings Institution study released Wednesday.”