Illinois foreclosures still way up
Significantly more Chicago area households received some type of foreclosure notice this June than last, suggesting the local foreclosure problem stands to get worse before it gets better.
June foreclosure filings - including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions - increased by 76 percent in Lake County, 53 percent in Cook County, 36 percent in McHenry County, 31 percent in Kane County and 30 percent in DuPage County compared with the same month a year earlier, according to statistics from RealtyTrac Inc.
Statewide, June foreclosure filings increased by 42 percent over the previous year, and the number of repossessed homes spiked by 158 percent.
In total, 1 out of every 484 households in the five-county Chicago area had some type of foreclosure action taken against it during June, the Irving, Calif.-based firm found.
On the brighter side, 16 percent fewer Illinois households received a foreclosure notice in June than in May.
But experts caution against reading too much into month-to-month variances.
"It's not the beginning of the end," RealtyTrac senior Vice President Rick Sharga said. "There's way too much inventory out there and properties going back to the banks. It's a tough market now."
The housing market is sending some conflicting signals, said Marve Stockert, executive director of Lombard-based Illinois Association of Mortgage Professionals.
Local home sales are up, Stockert said, but it's unclear how many of those represent a compromise deal between homeowners and lenders trying to stave off foreclosure.
Deteriorating home values, the tightest credit market in years, and prohibitively high interest rates continue to plague homeowners struggling to make timely mortgage payments, Stockert said.
Thursday's foreclosure statistics out of Illinois followed nationwide trends.
U.S. foreclosure filings rose 53 percent in June from a year earlier and bank repossessions almost tripled.
"The foreclosure problem is getting worse and will stay with us well into the next decade," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com. "The job market is eroding and homeowners have less equity. Lenders are much less willing to work with you if you've got negative equity, and you're more likely to give up your house if you're deeply under water."
About $3.5 trillion in homeowner equity has been wiped out since the spring of 2006, when housing prices were at their peak, Zandi said.
Sharga of RealtyTrac did offer some good news for Illinois homeowners.
"Illinois will probably come out of this cycle earlier than some other states like the Californias and Floridas that had more explosive price appreciations during the boom," Sharga predicted.
Daily Herald news services contributed to this report.