With today’s RealtyTrac Chicago foreclosure activity report release for August we are starting to see a clear upward trend in foreclosure activity. Now these numbers have no seasonal pattern and are highly volatile so I don’t normally pay attention to the year over year changes in foreclosure activity. However, August marks the 8th consecutive month of year over year increases in activity – up a total of 22% for the first 8 months of the year. The big increase in August was in default notices but auctions also increased by a lot. You can see the long term trend below along with a breakout of the components of foreclosure activity and it does look like we are in an upward trend. Before August came along it appeared as though things were flattening out.
The national headline is that foreclosure activity was flat but Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, explained what is probably taking place in Illinois and Chicago:
Bucking the national trend, deferred foreclosure activity boiled over in several states in August. In judicial states such as Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, this was a continuation of a trend we’ve been seeing for several months now. The increases in Florida and Illinois pushed foreclosure rates in those states to the two highest in the country.
According to the report Illinois had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate, with August being the first month that Illinois has ranked No. 1 since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005. We’re #1! We’re #1!
