WARREN — A staffer from the Trumbull County Treasurer’s Office noted there’s been an uptick in foreclosures in response to a resident’s question at a Tuesday meeting.

During the public comments portion of the Trumbull County Land Bank’s board meeting, Janet Hazlette asked Mike Robinson of the county treasurer’s office if they were seeing more people become slower in paying their taxes.

Robinson said he has noticed an uptick in foreclosures countywide — not in tax foreclosures, but mortgage foreclosures.

“I actually go back and look at what they paid for (the house); they didn’t get caught in the housing spike. Some of these, the ones that are happening now, are pre-COVID housing spikes,” Robinson said. “Where they actually got them at a decent, actually lower (rate).”

Robinson speculated that in those particular instances, people had “overbought” before the increase in value occurred, and with the 17% inflation experienced in 2023 and 2024, they were unable to meet their prior obligations.

Robinson recalled a 2,300-square foot Lordstown property purchased for $60,000 in 2019, and had its roof finished. He said the property was placed back into foreclosure by the owners.

Hazlette said she was curious about the quality of the homes people are behind on as opposed to 20 years ago, when the housing was “lower-grade.”

Robinson recalled a time when people who owned duplexes and multiple single-family homes decided it was time to get out of the business or offered the homes for sale at a reasonable price.

“The fraudsters came in, bought them for the $20,000, $30,000 they were actually worth, then sold them to an unsuspecting person for $60,000,” Robinson said. “That was the situation, the bank walked away between 2006 and 2012, where the banks looked at the asset they were going to get back in foreclosure, and they said, ‘We don’t even want the asset,’ — which created Matt (Martin, executive director of Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership).”

Robinson said if the treasurer’s office puts something up for auction via sheriff’s sale, it normally sells. He also said the land bank’s goal was to stabilize the increased housing value.

“Right now, it looks like, maybe a little upside down, but they may be able to sell at market in four to five years — where they’re not having to need a hundred thousand dollar subsidy to buy in,” Robinson said.

Robinson noted that if a house’s walls are sound and the roof is reparable, it normally sells — which Hazlette said was one of the advantages of homes in Warren.

With the potential increased cost of putting in a sewer system, Robinson noted a road like State Street, which was about 60% empty. He said he envisioned the land bank possibly taking out the remaining dilapidated houses and putting a whole new group of them on one street.

“It’s getting more possible every day; I mean, the need is there, the companies are moving into the area,” Robinson said.

Robinson said older people are taking out reverse mortgages, but not to the extent that it is impacting the treasurer’s office.

Martin said one of the funding categories they plan to see from Welcome Home Ohio — in addition to construction — is a $100,000-per-unit grant allowing Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership to buy from foreclosure sales.

“So we can get reimbursed up to $100K, whether it’s tax foreclosure or mortgage foreclosure, because a lot of land banks like us are having the same issue,” Martin said. “Our inventory is extremely low and low-quality, which is a good indicator as far as the housing market outside of us,” Martin said.

At the same time, however, he said they’re doing the renovations to a high level, but they’re getting properties that need the full renovation because everything else is selling via sheriff’s sale.

“If we get some of that funding, it’ll allow us to go buy via sheriff’s sale, which is something that we’ve not done at all in the last 15 years,” Martin said.

Robinson said he’d prefer it if the sheriff’s sales were limited to the intermediate areas, meaning auctions would only be available through an in-person public auction.

“Foreclosed properties for tax foreclosures are only available through a public auction in person. You have to go to the fifth floor of the administration building and submit through the commissioners herein to bid on anything we put up for foreclosure,” Robinson said. “We don’t do it on the site; mainly it is to encourage people in the immediate area, whether it be Warren, Youngstown or investors within the area to purchase, because then you have better control of it.”

“You don’t have somebody buying up our foreclosed properties and not living within the area, meaning that they’re buying from Texas or Florida or somewhere else.”