If you do a Google search for Illinois foreclosure timelines you will see that most legal experts seem to think it should take about 210 – 270 days. However, that’s in theory and the reality is far different. We all know of lots of anecdotes of people being able to live in their homes for free for a couple of years while the bank slowly gets around to dealing with them.
Well, those anecdotes might actually be pretty representative of the general reality according to data recently released by Moody’s Investor Service. According to the report the average age of an in-process foreclosure in judicial foreclosure states, such as Illinois, is 654 days. That’s a heck of an incentive to stop paying your mortgage. But it also means that if the banks ever get around to working through this pipeline (What is stopping them? I don’t get it.) there will be a real flood of properties hitting the market.