We’ve been talking about the gem that is illustrative mortgage maps from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for a while now. The New York Times and a number of other news outlets wrote about the site back in early spring, using it as a primary resource to illuminate the growing mortgage crisis. Of course, organizations like the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors use their own tools and data to try to demonstrate “growing buyer demand” and that the “market is showing signs of life.” So it’s no wonder MAAR just discovered the maps this weekend and pulled out these important pieces from them for its blog The Skinny :

• Only 53.7 percent of all subprime loans in Minnesota are “current,” (i.e. not currently behind on payments).

• 60.9 percent of subprime loans in Minnesota have had a late payment in the last 12 months.

• 75.5 percent of all active subprime loans in Minnesota have adjustable rates.

• 32.3 percent have a rate that will adjust in the next 12 months.

Still, despite that bleak picture, the folks at The Skinny still try to paint one of a “rebound.” Pending sales are up 6.2 percent in July over same period last year, they say, and supply was down 4.9 percent. Those numbers, however, can be directly attributed to the increase in quick-sell bank-owned properties and only underscore the reality of MAAR’s August 14 report, Foreclosures and Short Sales in the Twin Cities. In MAAR’s own words from this report: Over the past year, the inventory of lender-mediated properties has almost doubled, while traditional inventory has declined by 16 percent. 21.7 percent of all properties for sale at the beginning of July were lender-mediated.

In other words, any increase in pending sales can be directly attributed to the number of lender-mediated properties on the market. The halo effect of these sales goes beyond just dollars; it’s a crisis that will impact the entire city for years to come.

When you break the July sales numbers down my Minneapolis neighborhoods hardest hit by the mortgage meltdown, the eye-popping number of lender-mediated sales (most often foreclosures) spell out what will be a continued and prolonged struggle with blight and crime in those areas:

• 60 percent of home sales in the north Minneapolis neighborhood were lender-mediated.

• 54 percent of homes sales in Camden were lender-mediated.

• 44 percent of home sales in Powderhorn were lender-mediated.

• 30 percent of homes sales in West St. Paul were lender-mediated.

• 27.6 percent of homes sales in Richfield were lender-mediated.

City officials estimate that a foreclosure next door reduces a home’s value by 7 percent on top of the already city-wide 15-percent drop in property values. A boarded-up home next door decreases the value of a neighboring home an additional 7 percent. With foreclosures infesting these neighborhood at rates above, no one is immune from the equity hit. That doesn’t exactly spell “rebound,” does it?