Data released today by ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of RealtyTrac, shows that Chicago’s foreclosure activity didn’t improve much in April compared to last year – down only 6.0% – and actually rose 13% from March. You can see the history graphed below and it’s fairly obvious that the month to month variations are pretty wide. So it’s the year over year changes that are most meaningful and all but 2 of the last 25 months had a decline from the previous year.
However, the nation’s foreclosure activity in April did decline on both a month over month basis (down 5%) and year over year basis (down 13%). As you can see from the graph below foreclosure activity has been steadily declining since sometime in 2010 and ATTOM Data points out that April’s decline was the 10th consecutive month of year over year declines.
ATTOM Data also draws attention to the fact that several parts of the country are still trouble spots and Illinois is one of the top 5 states in terms of foreclosure rates. However, Chicago is not showing up on their list of top metropolitan areas with problems.
Chicago Shadow Inventory
Another disappointing statistic was the number of Chicago homes that are in some stage of foreclosure, which I track in the graph below. Obviously we would like to see this number as low as possible and declining over time but recently the graph has flattened out and April actually experienced the largest one month increase in 11 months. So this always begs the question of whether or not we’ve bottomed out. Then again, in the past, the graph has flattened only to resume its downward trek eventually.
#Foreclosures #ChicagoForeclosures
Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.