Part 1: Minnesota's new ghost towns
For a brief while, as Crystal Colvin handed out lemonade to the sweaty hopscotchers on her front porch, it seemed like a picture-perfect afternoon at the Colvin house in Albertville.
But inside, the atmosphere was tense.
Jon Colvin, 38, a telephone network technician and father of six children, had just informed CitiFinancial that he would be unable to make his March mortgage payment, and would probably miss April's, too. He hoped the news would finally scare the bank into renegotiating a mortgage he can't afford for a house he can't sell -- and now wishes he had never bought.
"It's not something I feel proud doing," Colvin said of missing the payments. "But how else am I going to get the bank's attention?"
The reckoning inside the Colvins' four-year-old home is playing out at kitchen tables and corporate boardrooms across Minnesota -- and the world. For the first time in decades, U.S. home values are plunging, dragging economies around the world down with them.
The roots of that financial crisis can be found in places like Wright County, where the combination of affordable land, cheap money and boundless optimism lured builders and families chasing big homes in the kind of brand-new subdivisions they thought were beyond their reach.
The county's population swelled nearly 30 percent in the past decade. Home prices seemed to climb with each arrival, making everyone feel rich.
But the boom has unraveled as quickly as it began. While many established Wright County neighborhoods have avoided the worst of the housing market collapse, the county ranks as one of the state's worst areas hit by foreclosures. Pockets of this county, about 30 miles northwest of the Twin Cities, have seen home prices fall 30 percent or more in the past year.
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Part 2: Housing bets gone bad
Wright County was a haven for speculators -- until they got burned in the downturn. -
Audio slide show:
Family's dream investment gone sour
Bradley Collin Jr., a 27-year-old painting contractor and father of three, bought four $300,000 houses in Otsego four years ago, in the hopes of selling them for big profits on the strength of a booming housing market. But things didn’t turn out as planned. All four houses have fallen into foreclosure, and creditors are hounding him at all hours of the day. -
Part 3: Housing downturn has suburbs stuck with the bills
Wright County welcomed growth with new schools and wide roads. But as half-built subdivisions lie fallow, it's paying the price. Officials are scrambling to revitalize neighborhoods that have fallen into decline just years after they were built. -
Audio slide show:
Development dreams dashed
Developer Jeff Schoenwetter built soccer fields, parks, gazebos, a swimming pool and other attractions on a patch of farmland in Otsego, in the hopes of creating a 400-home “master-planned community” known as Martin Farms. But his dream of a suburban paradise collapsed along with the housing market. -
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From boom to bust: About this series