Sacred buildings too face the heat of foreclosures in US

“We were kind of like that young married couple that really stretched for their first home,” said Bevan Unrau, the church’s senior pastor. “But I don’t think we’re completely unique.”

The era of easy credit has begun taking its toll on even the most sacred of borrowers, religious institutions.

Many churches expanded during the real estate boom, as banks large and small lent money based on assumptions about growth in their donations. The lenders were, in a sense, betting on the likelihood that a particular pastor could attract a large audience or, in some cases, on the popularity of one denomination over another. But, where those bets were wrong, or too optimistic, congregations found themselves knee-deep in debt and at risk of losing their houses of worship.

Hundreds of churches across the country have received foreclosure notices in recent months, and even more are behind on mortgage payments. An economic downturn tends to increase church attendance, but the amount each churchgoer donates tends to decrease. And newer members usually donate less than older ones. At least a quarter of religious properties have mortgages, according to an analysis of property and mortgage filings in 115 United States counties completed for The New York Times by First American CoreLogic, a data provider in California. But that number is far higher than it would have been without the mortgage boom. The number of mortgages issued to churches in those counties in 2005 was 50 percent higher than in 2002, the analysis showed.

Foreclosure filings have fallen on the doorstep of 254 properties, or 0.31 percent of the 82,441 churches studied.

— NYT