A report from the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina. "The Winston-Salem metropolitan statistical area experienced a sharp year-over-year increase in foreclosure filings during May, according to Attom Data Solutions. The five-county region had 187 filings, up 16.9% from a year ago and up 25.5% from April."

"Officials with the Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors have cautioned that information on delinquency and/or underwater loans can affect the real-estate market by undermining consumer confidence, causing some hesitation in buying or trying to sell a house now, and prompting an overreaction."

The Detroit Free Press in Michigan. "Michele McCoy always thought she and her siblings would inherit the house she grew up in on Decatur Street on Detroit's west side. Her father, a Detroit Police officer, and her mother, a schoolteacher, bought the three-bedroom bungalow in the late 1960s after moving here from Wheeling, West Virginia."

"But that changed after a visit nearly 20 years ago from a door-to-door representative of a reverse mortgage lender. The house on Decatur now is one of 1,884 reverse mortgage foreclosures in Detroit between 2013 and 2017. No other city in the country has seen more in that span, according to a USA Today analysis of 1.3 million loan records and hundreds of foreclosure cases."

"McCoy’s parents, William and Virginia Creighton, took out an $84,000 reverse mortgage in 2000 on the home for repairs. The house needed a roof, pipe work in the basement and a furnace, McCoy said. The Creightons fell behind on their property taxes and lost the house to foreclosure in 2016. Fannie Mae sold the property the next year to Paramount Consortium, a Warren-based company, for $4,500 — an amount so paltry that McCoy said she wouldn't share with her parents."

"They are now both in their 90s and live in an apartment in Westland. Looking back, McCoy said she doesn't think her father fully understood the reverse mortgage. 'He was just confused,' she said."

The Asbury Park Press in new Jersey. "Ocean County has some of the nation's highest levels of foreclosures from reverse mortgages its residents took out during the housing bubble in the 2000s, a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis has found. The foreclosures are dampening home values long after the Great Recession ended. And it has left many of the residents' heirs with little, if any, inheritance."

"'We just said, 'You can have it back,' said Eric Rothenberg, whose mother-in-law in Toms River took out a reverse mortgage in 2006 and died three years later owing far more than the home was worth. 'We're not looking to get money out of it.'"

"Reverse mortgages allow residents age 62 and older to borrow money from the equity in their home. The loan doesn't need to be paid back as long as they live there and continue to pay taxes and insurance. The loan balance, however, increases over time because of interest and fees. It eventually needs to be repaid — either by the borrower after they move or their heirs. And if it falls into foreclosure, it can depress home values in the neighborhood."

"Rothenberg's mother-in-law, Victoria McNeil, bought her home in Toms River in 2004 for $280,000. Her reverse mortgage lender foreclosed in 2013. The townhouse's new owners bought it that year for $160,000, according to property records."

"The county's high rate of foreclosures on reverse mortgages can depress prices in the rest of the neighborhood. And it's a sign seniors don't have the income to keep up with the cost of living, said James Carroll, a professor of business administration at Georgian Court University in Lakewood."

"'When you go to a reverse mortgage, you've paid off (most of) your house, and you've got to go back to the well to get the money out,' Carroll said."

The Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. "Three creditors of Live Well Financial are trying to force the former Chesterfield County-based mortgage lender and servicer into involuntary bankruptcy protection. Flagstar Bank, Mirae Asset Securities Inc. and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services LLC claim that Live Well, which abruptly ceased operations in early May, owes them a total of more than $130 million."

"A bankruptcy judge will determine the outcome. 'Given the debtor’s recent mass layoff, there are serious questions regarding the management and control of the debtor, its ability to protect and preserve assets (including any potential causes of action that may exist as a result of Live Well’s activities), and liquidate in a manner that will maximize value for its creditors and other stakeholders,' the filing said."

"'Consequently, Flagstar and the petitioning creditors have filed the involuntary petitions in order to initiate a court-supervised, orderly liquidation process that will preserve the debtor’s assets, protect value and, ultimately, provide for the distribution of such assets and value to parties entitled to them,' the filing said."

"It is unclear what developments took place that forced Live Well Financial to shut down on May 3 and lay off its 103 employees, who worked at the company’s corporate offices in the Boulders office complex in Chesterfield."

"'Due to sudden and unexpected developments in the markets for certain financial assets the company uses as collateral for certain credit facilities that provide this liquidity, these lenders have reduced significantly the amount of liquidity they make available to the company,' Live Well Financial said in a letter to Virginia employment officials when it said it was ceasing operations."