Mayors: Foreclosures will drag metro areas

DETROIT, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The foreclosure crisis will slow growth of the gross domestic product, jobs and tax revenues, a U.S. Conference of Mayors report said.

The report projects economic losses for 361 metro areas, the conference said in a news release.

The Global Insight report predicts the foreclosure crisis will result in 524,000 fewer jobs being created in 2008 and a potential loss of $6.6 billion in tax revenues in 10 states. Also, the foreclosure crisis would reduce home values by an additional $519 billion in 2008, bringing the total forecast of lost equity for the nation's homeowners to $1.2 trillion.

"Today the foreclosure crisis has the potential to break the back of our economy, as well as the backs of millions of American families, if we don't do something soon," conference President Douglas Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J., said Monday during a meeting of mayors, mortgage industry representatives and community advocacy groups in Detroit.

One response was creation of a partnership between the mayors and the Mortgage Bankers Association of America to create a free online database listing the owners and-or servicers of foreclosed properties. The database will help officials identify the entity legally responsible for maintaining vacated, foreclosed properties.