Foreclosure tough on single women

Judy Wittenberg adores her cozy one-story, Craftsman-style house in the affluent Linden Hills neighborhood in Minneapolis. The place isn't sprawling or grandiose like some of the homes there.

But Wittenberg likes the size of her house. She even thinks the bathroom's charming.

"Look at the little sink, it's adorable. And then the tiny bedrooms." Lately, strangers have been admiring Wittenberg's house, too.

Her home of six years is in foreclosure. Once that became public record, interested buyers and real estate agents started driving by and taking pictures. Some even left notes in Wittenberg's mailbox, offering to buy her house.

"At first I wept, and called up my friends and said, 'Oh my God, I'm freaking out. People are approaching the house,'" said Wittenberg. "But then I was like, 'You know what? The vultures are circling, and I can't let that bother me.'"

Wittenberg is a freelance producer of TV commercials, and she said each job earns her a hefty paycheck. But she hasn't had significant income for nine months, and has had to tap her $100,000 in savings.

"My retirement fund is gone," Wittenberg said. "It was kicked in the head by the economy and the stock market. Then I had to withdraw what little was left simply to live on."

Now Wittenberg is flat broke. She hasn't paid her mortgage since January.

"When you are alone and your safety net is gone, it is terrifying."

But she's trying to persuade her lender to halt her foreclosure. Wittenberg said she just needs time to find a job -- and she'll take anything.

All this would be easier, she said, if she weren't doing it all on her own. She said the emotional and financial support that comes from having a partner or spouse went away when she ended a long-term relationship.

"When you are alone and your safety net is gone, it is terrifying. It is terrifying," she said.

It's not clear if single women are going into foreclosure any more often than men.

But the Minnesota Home Ownership Center, which oversees housing counseling services around the state, said female homeowners -- with or without children -- are seeking foreclosure counseling services far more often than single men.

One possible reason: Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that single women are twice as likely to buy a home than single men. That's despite the fact that on average, women earn less than men.

In the second quarter of 2008, the most recent data available from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, women in the state earned an average of about $3,000 a month, whereas men averaged around $4,600.

In any case, as Ed Nelson from the Minnesota Home Ownership Center points out, whether you're a man or woman, negotiating foreclosure as a single person carries unique challenges.

He said trying to renegotiate mortgage terms while also working, running a household alone, and maybe also raising kids, is tough to manage.

"That can be extremely time-consuming. People can actually give up and stop trying to work with their lender," Nelson said.

But some people pull it off.

Alicia is a divorced mother of two teenage girls. She moved here from Mexico in 1990 and owns a condo in Plymouth. She asked to go by her first name only because she's sensitive about the fact that her home went into foreclosure in November.

She recently succeeded in renogiating with her lender.

"It's definitely not easy," she said, speaking through an interpreter. "I have to be extremely organized. I have to keep very good track of my income and expenses."

She also took in a renter to boost her income, sought help, and saved money.

Unlike Judy Wittenberg, Alicia said her job situation with a medical supply company has always been steady.

She got into trouble because the adjustable rate on the first of her two mortgages jumped to a much higher rate. She stopped paying the mortgages last September.

At that time, Alicia shared Judy Wittenberg's panic about trying to avoid foreclosure on one income.

"I was sure I was going to lose the home at that time because I had seen so many other people lose their homes, especially families that had two parents, two income earners in the home," she said. "I thought, how can I, just me paying this, how am I going to be able to make it? Definitely I'm going to lose the home."

Alicia is now thrilled that she's worked things out. She's starting to make mortgage payments again this month, when she otherwise might have been forced to move.

In the meantime, Judy Wittenberg said she's provided her lender with 27 pages of documentation, asking to stall a sheriff's sale on her home in the next couple of weeks.

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