As an issue nobody willingly gets involved in, and which also
contributed to the collapse of the world economy, real estate and
lending practices had become criminally fraudulent over the last 10
years or so, resulting in a national average drop in property values
of over 30% at this point.

In some areas, the excessiveness of foreclosures has been so
methodical that their average drop in property value has been instead
70% to 90%.

The problem does not track to areas more prone to the homeowners
losing their jobs and housing.

It tracks to areas that still engage in public services removals,
criminal harassment forced into civil court protections instead of the
mandatory criminal protections, excessive rates of removal of
mandatory consumer protections from inspections and disclosures fraud,
and related practices.

Frugal-living and attempting to do the right thing by a homeowner is
defeated by the local abuses in those areas at rates that are
completely different from the national average rates resulting from
deregulation of mortgage and credit practices.

The areas are also associated with attorneys whose incomes are focused
only on bankruptcy and foreclosure outside of very large population
centers like Chicago and New York, where there is enough work for an
attorney to focus on bankruptcy without creating a local constructive
removal of modifying mortgages and payment terms in order to repay
debt.

Also driving foreclosure rates well above national ones, from the
local social roster pushing foreclosures and bankruptcy as "good for
you" versus real estate agent instructions to sit tight for several
years until the market comes back the way the stock market did.

The only way I know of to refuse to buy in areas like this, whose
practices are concealed by the refusal to cooperate with the crime
reporting the public assumes they have and don't in these areas, is to
look out for homes that appear to be good properties but have a low
value compared to what similar properties have in economically
comparable areas otherwise.

The too good to be true that is backed by inspection reports and
disclosures, is instead often one of these kinds of areas that does
the same thing to any buyer who purchases in those areas where the
normal criminal protections we all assume we are protected with, and
consumer protections in real estate fraud, in actual practice have
been defeated one way or another.