-by Electa Draper, The Denver Post.
A congregation losing its house of worship, once a rare event, is now common in Colorado — part of a national trend of record foreclosures on churches.
The real-estate information company CoStar Group looked at five years of distressed church sales and found only a handful of foreclosures nationwide prior to 2008, when the number jumped to 24. In 2009, the figure was 67.
CoStar Group spokeswoman Angela Brown said the market saw a big spike in 2010 with 135 churches sold after a lender-initiated foreclosure. In 2011, there were 138 such sales. The states with the highest percentages of forced church sales often were those with some of the worst home-foreclosure rates,
including California, Florida and Michigan.
In Colorado, church real-estate specialist Todd Whittaker, president of Service Realty Inc. in Denver, says church foreclosures occur with some regularity now... Other congregations are trying to sell their buildings before it comes to that.
"We're pretty active, but it's because churches are struggling,"
Whittaker said. "Their offerings are way down. Churches need to sell. We have 10 church listings in the Denver area, when normally we have seven or eight, and they are moving slowly. Banks are nervous about lending to churches right now... I don't see an end to this any time soon."
-Please comment on this topic at the website below- http://www.johnthebaptisttv.com/
A congregation losing its house of worship, once a rare event, is now common in Colorado — part of a national trend of record foreclosures on churches.
The real-estate information company CoStar Group looked at five years of distressed church sales and found only a handful of foreclosures nationwide prior to 2008, when the number jumped to 24. In 2009, the figure was 67.
CoStar Group spokeswoman Angela Brown said the market saw a big spike in 2010 with 135 churches sold after a lender-initiated foreclosure. In 2011, there were 138 such sales. The states with the highest percentages of forced church sales often were those with some of the worst home-foreclosure rates,
including California, Florida and Michigan.
In Colorado, church real-estate specialist Todd Whittaker, president of Service Realty Inc. in Denver, says church foreclosures occur with some regularity now... Other congregations are trying to sell their buildings before it comes to that.
"We're pretty active, but it's because churches are struggling,"
Whittaker said. "Their offerings are way down. Churches need to sell. We have 10 church listings in the Denver area, when normally we have seven or eight, and they are moving slowly. Banks are nervous about lending to churches right now... I don't see an end to this any time soon."
-Please comment on this topic at the website below- http://www.johnthebaptisttv.com/
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