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Subprime loans catch up with Staten Island

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From the January issue: With its solid middle class and abundance of single-family homes, Staten Island is the borough that most closely mirrors the rest of the nation. Accordingly, average sale prices fell the furthest of any borough in the city, 28 percent from peak to trough, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel. As prices began to slide at the end of 2007, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that Staten Island had the city's highest percentage of subprime and "Alt-A" loans, which require less documentation and are available to those with lower credit scores. Today, those loans have translated into a flood of deeply discounted short sales, foreclosures and bank-owned properties, including many in the borough's higher-end areas.