Two more southern New Jersey counties – Atlantic and Camden – are planning to start a foreclosure-tracking program recently pioneered by Gloucester County.
Like the rest of the state, Gloucester faces the fallout caused by a glut of foreclosed properties.
In June, New Jersey had the third-highest foreclosure rate in the country, rippling into quality-of-life issues throughout the state.
Gloucester County, part suburban, part semi-rural, has more than 3,000 foreclosed properties. Maybe a third are "zombies" – empty, but not yet officially foreclosed.
In New Jersey, about 70,000 homes are in foreclosure, with about 17,000 of them zombie foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac, a real estate data company.
“It’s a one-stop registry that won’t cost us or the municipalities anything,” explained Gloucester County Administrator Chad Bruner of the program, which is administered by Community Champions, a Florida company. Community Champions, Gloucester County and participating towns split the fees lenders pay when they are registered.
Bruner said Community Champions has committed to aggressively researching property ownership and pushing compliance with the registration program. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
Now Camden and Atlantic counties are planning to follow Gloucester’s lead and adopt the same program to get a handle on troubled properties before they become neighborhood nuisances, according to officials in the three counties.
Atlantic County, staggered by casino closings last year that led to about 8,000 layoffs and widespread home mortgage defaults, has the second-highest rate of foreclosure in the state, according to RealtyTrac.
Atlantic County administrator Jerry DelRosso said that’s why he’s exploring how to bring the tracking program to the county.
This property at 34 Crescent Ave. in Woodbury, Gloucester County, has been identified as a foreclosure. (Source: Gloucester County Administrator's Office)
Camden City recently instituted its own property registration program, but the municipal program hasn’t caught up with the decadeslong problem there, said Kris Kolluri, who oversees operations in the city for the Rowan University-Rutgers-Camden Board of Governors.
The board is trying to acquire several parcels in Camden for a planned expansion and is experiencing “a tremendous challenge” finding previous owners via the city’s incomplete property records, Kolluri said.
Kolluri would love to have a property tracking system that is “more efficient and cost-effective” than Camden City’s and has faster results and more accurate information, which is the aim of the Gloucester County program.
Also, Camden City is no longer alone in Camden County when it comes to grappling with foreclosure issues, according to county spokesman Dan Keashen, who said the county’s density assures there are troublesome foreclosure properties everywhere now.
“This seems like a very innovative program, and we’re looking at how we can implement this in Camden County,” said Keashen.
Gloucester’s 24 municipalities are free to join the program – or not – said Bruner. So far, 11 towns are on board and perhaps six or seven more are considering signing up, he added. To participate in the registry program, local towns set the fees and adopt penalties for non-compliance.
Bruner believes Gloucester County has about 3,300 abandoned homes that could end up on the registry.
Property research and registration costs will be charged back to property owners – lenders – of the properties, even if they are so-called zombies.
Zombie properties often create the worst problems for neighbors because finding someone to hold accountable is difficult.