Amid a decline in foreclosures citywide, the number of homeowners in The Bronx facing such cases has nearly doubled from the prior year, highlighting worrying economic trends in the borough.
A recent report from PropertyShark, a real estate research platform, shows first-time foreclosures of single- and two-family homes as well as coop and condo apartments in New York dropped 5% overall between the second quarter of 2026 and the same time period last year. Manhattan and Brooklyn each saw a four-year low.
But in The Bronx, the number of first-time foreclosures has risen from 57 last year to 109 this year. Many foreclosures came from the northeast neighborhoods of The Bronx, including Williamsbridge, where 10 foreclosures happened in the past quarter. Queens saw a smaller increase, from 128 to 140, according to the report.
The Bronx’s figures are most worrying to experts because that borough has a much lower rate of homeownership than other boroughs do. In Queens, the homeownership rate is 45%, the highest in the city, but in The Bronx, it’s 20%, the lowest.
The uptick in Bronx foreclosures is likely to continue, as advocates warn of mounting debt and the added pressure of lien sales — currently under city review — that could make the situation worse.
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Part of the trend, experts say, is explained by the reemergence of foreclosure cases that have been stuck in a backlog left over from a pandemic-era state moratorium on foreclosures.
“This was quite sudden, the uplift in cases in The Bronx. We’ve seen [foreclosures] grow more and more since 2022, after the moratorium was lifted,” said Eliza Theiss, a researcher at PropertyShark.
She said foreclosure activity has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels, but is climbing.
One major red flag worrying advocates who spoke with The City Reporter: a climb in tax liens, or debt claims. At the same time, a temporary pause of the city’s tax lien sale — the public auction of homeowners’ unpaid debt — has reignited a debate about whether the Mamdani administration should continue or abolish the practice.
Other factors are exacerbating the trend in The Bronx, foreclosure prevention advocates say. The ongoing cost-of-living crisis and the end of federal assistance vouchers — a Biden-era initiative meant to last through 2030 that was terminated under the Trump administration — have created a domino effect.
“We’ve definitely seen an uptick in individuals coming to us for help,” said Martha De Jesus, director of Bronx Legal Services’ Neighborhood Stabilization Project, which helps people navigate foreclosure litigation.
“This is the first time we’re seeing the surge at full bend … so we are in the middle of the perfect storm of conditions in The Bronx,” she said.
A Brewing Storm
Experts say the coming crisis is underscored by a major measure of distress for homeowners: getting hit with tax liens, a claim on a property that has debt.
While only two of the foreclosures in the PropertyShark report came from tax liens, over 3,400 of those were sold in The Bronx, according to De Jesus — a rise from previous years. She estimates thousands of homeowners may face foreclosure because they can’t afford to pay down their debt.
Gladstone Johnson, executive director of Bronx Neighborhood Housing Services, said he is seeing a huge uptick in notices of default. The city contracts with his organization to do outreach to residents at risk of foreclosure before their cases snowball.
Johnson regularly receives from the city’s Department of Finance a list of people who have notices of default against their home. The number of contacts on the list has grown “substantially” between last year and now, he said, from around 4,000 Bronx residents to over 5,000.
While around half of those residents were able to pay off their debt with BNHS’ alert, Johnson said the city-funded grant for the organization’s outreach program is insufficient, considering the growing list of names.
“This is the largest amount I’ve seen in the three years I’ve been here,” he said.
The Tax Lien Debate
Amid rising foreclosures in The Bronx is a debate about how the city should handle those with tax liens on their homes.
Starting in the Giuliani administration, the city previously held a tax lien sale each year where homeowners’ property and water bill debts are sold to private investor-backed trusts, which attempt to collect the debt while charging homeowners additional fees and interest.
Then the city paused the sale during the pandemic. Last fall, during the final months of the Adams administration, the city held its first tax lien sale in years. But in March, the Mamdani administration froze the sale again.
Now a question remains about what City Hall will do next, as the city’s six-month moratorium on the tax lien sale ends in October. Without a full abolition of the sale and a focus on underlying issues, advocates say the risk of further mass displacement is high as foreclosed homes are purchased at auction by private investors.
“It is clear that the tax lien sale is a way for people to lose their homes,” said Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, in an interview with The City Reporter. He recently lost a two-family Brooklyn home he did not live in through a foreclosure after taking a “bad loan” on it to fund a sandwich business venture, he said.
“The systems of home ownership and property ownership have always seemed to work against Black and brown communities, just from the inception,” Williams said.
Mamdani, a former foreclosure prevention counselor in Queens, called the tax lien sale “predatory” during his mayoral run. Now, a spokesperson for his administration says the review of the tax lien sale is “ongoing.”
“We look forward to sharing an update when the review concludes, as we work to create a fairer, more affordable city,” spokesperson Casey Berkovitz said in an email to The City Reporter.
Some, including Sean Campion, director of housing and economic development studies at the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission, say the tax liens program is an effective tool to get people to pay their property taxes and water bills.
“In previous periods where the tax lien sale has been suspended, we’ve seen that property tax delinquencies have gone up. If there are no consequences, people won’t pay their property taxes,” Campion said.
When Mamdani imposed the six-month moratorium and review on the sale in March, it resulted in an $80 million projected loss for the city’s preliminary budget, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office.
De Jesus said the tax lien moratorium serves as a “Band-Aid on a gunshot wound” of the foreclosure trend that disproportionately affects Black and brown communities and vulnerable populations like the elderly. She works with people who have owned their home for decades but risk losing it because of a missed water bill that compounds over time.
“Because they’re older and facing mental health issues, or their dementia becomes a big factor, they forget to make a payment,” she said.
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