ATTOM Data Solutions released their Year End 2018 US Foreclosure Market Report yesterday and they also were kind enough to provide me with the December Chicago foreclosure activity data which I used to update my graph below. Chicago’s total foreclosure activity for December was the second lowest since I’ve been compiling the data and down a bit more than 23% from the previous year. Most notable was the record low in bank repossessions – burgundy in the graph – which isn’t necessarily a good thing if it means that lenders are unable to complete the foreclosure process.
At the national level it should be no surprise that 2018 set a 13 year record low in foreclosure activity, which is shown in the next graph. Todd Teta, Chief Product Officer with ATTOM, feels that the foreclosure pipeline from the housing crisis is pretty much cleaned up but there might be some new, dark clouds on the horizon:
Plummeting foreclosure completions combined with consistently falling foreclosure timelines in 2018 provide evidence that most of the distress from the last housing crisis has now been cleaned up. But there was also some evidence of distress gradually returning to the housing market in 2018, with foreclosure starts increasing from the previous year in more than one-third of all state and local housing markets.
Some of that distress was driven by natural disasters, most notably in Houston, where foreclosure starts increased 61 percent. But natural disasters do not explain the increase in markets such as Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee and Austin — all of which posted double-digit percentage increases in foreclosure starts in 2018.
Chicago Shadow Inventory
The graph below tracks the total number of Chicago homes that are currently at some stage of the foreclosure process – also known as the shadow inventory. It shows a shrinking pipeline of homes abused by the financial crisis – a mere fraction of what it once was and still steadily and rapidly declining. That’s good news for the Chicago real estate market.
#ChicagoForeclosures #Foreclosures #ChicagoRealEstate
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, get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry, or you just think he’s the next Kurt Vonnegut 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.