“Boom, Bust in Area Beset by Foreclosures”

Excerpt from this article.

This is the tale of how America’s real estate boom came to a seemingly ordinary subdivision called the Villages at Queen Creek, where the whipsaw of easy credit has led to some extraordinary times.

They were the best of times, for a while. The empty homes, though, raise serious doubts about what comes next.

As the nation confronts skyrocketing foreclosures, and policymakers try to contain a symptomatic credit crunch, what is happening here and in scores of similar neighborhoods is worth considering.

Because while the pressures at work in Queen Creek were extreme, the choices people made — and the consequences of those decisions — are not so different from those faced by thousands of other homeowners and their neighbors.

“Honestly,” says Joy Kessler, a mother of three boys standing on the doorstep of the house she and her husband are surrendering to foreclosure, “if you were in this situation, what would you do?”