Obama’s State Posts Top Foreclosure Rate in August
It may not be his birthplace, but President Obama cannot be happy that the state he represented in the U.S. Senate made it to the top of RealtyTrac’s foreclosure report in August, particularly since his administration has placed such an emphasis on reducing foreclosures in the country during his time in office. One in every 298 Illinois housing units had a foreclosure filing during August thanks to a 29 percent jump in overall foreclosure activity from the previous month, taking the state’s total activity to 42 percent above the foreclosure level reported a year ago. August was the eighth consecutive month that the state had year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity.
Drilling down to the local level, among the nation’s top metro areas with populations totaling 200,000 or more, the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metro area came in with the eighth highest foreclosure rate in August, reporting one in every 235 housing units with a foreclosure filing. This was almost a 28 percent increase from July and took local foreclosure activity to 44 percent above the level reported a year earlier.
The Rockford metro area fell right in line behind Chicago with the ninth highest foreclosure rate of one in every 249 metro housing units with a foreclosure filing. This was nearly a 15 percent increase from the previous month, and brought the metro’s foreclosure level to almost 53 percent above the level for the same time last year.
Distressed properties accounted for 30 percent of all residential sales in the Chicago metro area during the second quarter of 2012 (18 percent bank-owned homes and 12 percent pre-foreclosure short sales), and 25 percent (18 percent bank-owned homes and 7 percent short sales) of all residential sales in the Rockford metro.
The average sales price of a distressed home in Chicago metro was $131,562, a 46 percent discount compared to the average sales price of a traditional listing, while in Rockford distressed homes sold at an average sales price of $66,160, a 36 percent discount compared to the average price for a traditional listing.
For the state as a whole, 27 percent of all residential sales were distressed properties (17 percent bank-owned homes and 10 percent short sales) during the second quarter of the year. Those properties sold at a 41 percent average discount for an average sales price of $130,454.
Illinois first appeared in RealtyTrac’s top 10 foreclosure rates in January 2005 ranking seventh. However, it did not begin to appear on a more regular basis in that ranking until the second half of 2008.
Being a judicial foreclosure state, this faster rate could mean that the banks are ramping up their foreclosure machinery in Illinois to catch up on all the foreclosure processing that was delayed due to the robo-signing fiasco which began back in October 2010. Many of the judicial foreclosure states — like Florida and Illinois — have a lot of catching up to do considering the backlog left in their state court systems when the machinery came to a screeching halt.
Are we in for one last wave of foreclosure activity as the banks get back into the business of processing their foreclosures? We welcome your comments.
Author Bio: Rob Alley earned a bachelors degree at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA in Biology. Rob Alley consults with homeowners regarding Real Estate transactions and speciliazes in listing and selling Charlottesville Real Estate. Realtor/Owner of Virginia Real Estate Solutions at RE/MAX Assured Properties
Charlottesville Real Estate Experts
Share on Facebook
Comments
Post a Comment