Archive for 'Illinois'

Home inspectors have noticed an alarming trend in homes on REO property listings. Many of them have sustained extreme damages.

Tom Carter, a home inspector, noted that homes on REO property listings then bore only writings on walls or harmless holes on the drywall. But now, he is alarmed by the extent of damages some foreclosed homes sustained. He said that some people removed the toilets, sinks, plumbing fixtures, electrical lights, switches and outlets, counter tops and kitchen cabinets.

Carter, of the company Quality Home Inspectors, has experienced the worst from homeowners who were forced out of their properties because of their failure to make mortgage payments. One example is a house at Joliet wherein former homeowners left behind three dogs and six cats, with no water and food, for a month.

Carter said that the foreclosed home was in the worst condition, with urine and odors seeping into the carpets and the floor stained. He claimed that to make the foreclosed house livable, the drywall and moldings should be removed and the carpet washed.

Meanwhile, Lamont Veenendaal of The Brickkicker, recalled a foreclosed house severely damage by motor oil that had spread around the property.

Illinois foreclosure filings jumped by 68 percent in the first quarter of this year, to 38,966 properties, compared with a year ago level for the same quarter. This increase happened despite government efforts to rescue the banking institutions and help distressed homeowners avoid REO property listings.

The number of foreclosure filings in the first quarter was 32 percent higher from the December 2008 figures, with one out of 135 homeowners in the state receiving foreclosure filings. This makes Illinois the fifth highest among states with foreclosure rate.

In March, Illinois reported 15,398 foreclosure filings, an increase of 8 percent from February and 79 percent higher from the March 2008 level. In Kane County, foreclosure rates reached 4,146 and 48,765 in the county of Cook in 2008.

Meanwhile, abandoned and vacant REO properties for sale are being tracked by police through regular patrols. Aside from damages perpetrated on the houses, another big problem compounding vandalism is the squatters.

Squatters have been known to occupy homes on REO property listings that have no heat or running water. Some would even go to the extent of changing the locks on utilities and tampering with water meter so that nobody could read it.

The foreclosure list in Chicago, Illinois is registering a dramatic increase in the number of houses in the first quarter of 2009. And this time, subprime mortgage has nothing to do with the flood of foreclosed properties in the market. The culprit: job loss which is driving foreclosure filings in Chicago suburbs.

In the first three months of this year, foreclosure cases filed rose from 25 percent to 70 percent compared with figures in the last quarter of 2008. Data released by housing advocacy group Woodstock Institute showed foreclosure increases in counties of Will, McHenry, DuPage, Kane and Lake.

Meanwhile, foreclosure filings in Chicago metropolitan area increased by 6 percent to 17,819, the highest quarterly total since the foreclosure crisis started in the second half of 2006.

Woodstock Vice President of research Geoff Smith explained that subprime lending has ceased to be the key reason for mortgage defaults. Homeowners are now defaulting on their mortgages due to job losses and recession.

During the subprime mortgage crisis, foreclosure homes were mostly seen in poor city neighborhoods which were targeted by lenders giving out loans with high interest rates. However, the latest round of foreclosures is starting to emerge in middle-class neighborhoods where most homeowners took out standard-rate mortgages.

Industry experts believed that the number of houses in the foreclosure lists in Chicago suburbs will continue to rise if the unemployment problem remains unchecked. And unabated foreclosures mean further pressure on real estate values in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Furthermore, a rising foreclosure rate will force Chicago suburban neighborhoods to endure abandoned and vacant homes and dislocated families.

Realtor Association of the Fox Valley President Donna McQuade said that the foreclosure problem in Chicago has remained unchecked for some time. She believed that this time, residents and officials have no choice but respond to the problem.

Data released showed that one in every five houses in foreclosure list is a short sale. According to Realtor Association, short selling indicates that the home seller owes the lender more than the worth of his distressed property.

Meanwhile, housing counselors have noticed a change in their clients. They said that they are now advising distressed homeowners who lost their income or jobs and have not been in any financial trouble until recently.

And as the number of repo properties in Illinois foreclosure list continue to increase, so is the caseloads in housing counseling agencies.

Delinquent homeowners in Illinois have been given more time to seek remedies to save their houses from becoming forclosed houses. Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn has just signed a law amending the Illinois Home Foreclosure Act, extending the grace period for distressed borrowers to seek certified foreclosure prevention counseling.

Under the amendment, borrowers are given 30 days more beyond the typical grace period of 30 days to seek foreclosure counseling. After they enter counseling, they are again given another extension of 30 days to complete their loan modification requirements and save their properties from becoming foreclosed homes.

Jasmine Brewer, a certified counselor working for Interfaith Housing Center of the Northwest Suburbs, said she has been advising borrowers to save money for the loan modification and to look for other sources of income. Typically, she said, the banks require borrowers to pay part of missed payments before the loans can be modified. Sometimes they demand the payment in just ten days, one of the reasons many houses still become foreclosed homes despite the federal modification program.

In many suburbs served by housing nonprofit Interfaith, the number of foreclosed homes tripled in the last two years. Foreclosures in Skokie rose to 346 foreclosed homes between the years 2007 and 2008, an increase of 93 percent. Likewise in Glenview, foreclosures rose to 190 foreclosed homes, an increase of 131 percent in the past two years.

In Morton Grove, foreclosures soared by over 200 percent to 150 foreclosed homes. Other areas with relatively large numbers of foreclosed homes were Northbrook, Evanston, Wilmette and Highland Park.

These large numbers of foreclosed homes put Illinois foreclosures among the ten top highest foreclosure figures nationwide in 2008 and in the first two months of 2009, as surveyed by foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac. In 2008, Illinois had a total of 115,063 foreclosure filings and 99,488 properties with foreclosure filings. Its foreclosure rate of 1.91 percent put the state 9th in ranking of state foreclosure rates in 2008.

Interfaith housing counselor Brewer said oftentimes she has to be blunt with some of the troubled homeowners. Either their monthly income is not enough to make the payments even if these are reduced or their loan balances are many times over the market value of their homes. But for many others, she tries her best to find a remedy from options available to save families from foreclosure.

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Despite the bad economic situation that the country is in at the moment, investors and homebuyers are reaping benefits in finding great bargains from tax foreclosure properties put on sale.

This provides an optimistic atmosphere over the gloom that mortgage defaults on subprime lending have caused families resulting to foreclosures. These properties revert back to banks and lenders and are considered bad investments. Banks want these properties off their books at the soonest possible time and have no resort but to sell them in auctions at bargain prices.

Foreclosed homes real estate auctions have been blossoming in various areas across the states, attracting thousands of investors and first-time homebuyers. Hundreds of properties are changing hands over the weekend, with properties located in suburbs and prime locations, which make them attractive even more.

Prices of these homes have dropped tremendously. In some cases, foreclosed homes in Chicago were sold at less than half of their original appraised values. This attracted several investors to place their money in these homes, hoping for the market to recover in the coming months and prices go back up to original rates.

Despite the good turn out of foreclosed homes for sale, experts say that the market is still unstable. With more homeowners in default or in some stage of foreclosure, the crisis is most likely to drag on in the coming months. Illinois alone has 13,000 homes in danger of foreclosures.

Still, auction organizers are optimistic of the benefits the market is bringing to the community in terms of revenues. Some homes need rehabilitation which benefits contractors.

Contractors would need materials and in turn benefits hardware stores. Families moving in would want new appliances and other stuff which benefit retail stores in the community. It just benefits the community and the city as a whole, hopefully enough to balance out the losses brought about by foreclosures.

Such was the plight of a Chicago family with ten people, 8 of which are children. They were forced out of their rental apartment, which they did not know already fell to foreclosures, and into homelessness. The Chamber’s family was renting a unit in a building in Lawndale when the landlord eventually abandoned his tenants as the property succumbed to foreclosures.

With no utilities left in the building after water pipes were dismantled and stolen (typical of abandoned foreclosed homes) the family suffered from the cold. The situation was aggravated when drug dealers and lawless elements started occupying areas in the building, which finally forced the Chamber’s family to move out of their apartment for fear of their own safety.

The family had no choice but to stay with a relative, who also has three kids, in a meager two-bedroom apartment. No landlord would provide an apartment for a big family of 10. With many renters moving out of foreclosed properties, more people will be vying for any available rental slots. If the Chambers family failed to get assistance with their plight, they would end up living in a car.

Chambers already sought assistance from the local governments but received minimal help. What aggravated her situation was that they didn’t receive any official eviction papers after the property fell to foreclosures. These should have qualified them for some direct assistance from the state. With a growing number of foreclosures which involved rental units, the city has been flooded with renters who do not have a place to go, which scrambled community and non-profit organizations.

However, these groups can only do so much and would require additional help from state and city officials. These groups are clamoring for an immediate task force from the city to resolve this issue quickly and help these families off the streets.

If you are still having trouble picturing the current housing market conditions, you should only look at the foreclosure court in Cook County, Chicago. In order to keep up with the soaring number of foreclosure filings, the said court has decided to hire four additional judges, bringing the total number of foreclosure judges to 14.

Aside from addressing the piling foreclosure cases, the county court hopes to start preparing for the worst. With the country battling perhaps the worst financial crisis in history, judges are expecting more homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure.

At present, the judges are busy dealing with the foreclosures, which were filed last year. Since it could take a year for foreclosure cases to be resolved, it is only understandable for the foreclosure court to expect an increase in its case load in the coming months.

If you think that this is the sad part, you are mistaken. According to court records, only 20 percent of the foreclosure cases have their day in court and a whopping 80 percent go uncontested.

Foreclosure judges have long encouraged distressed homeowners and mortgage lenders to re-negotiate the terms of the existing mortgage agreement in order to avoid a foreclosure. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of these troubled borrowers got approved for a repayment or loan modification.

Last October 1, the controversial mortgage relief program sponsored by the government was finally implemented and over 400,000 troubled borrowers are expected to benefit from it. Since the program is voluntary, lenders will still have to approve the homeowner’s application before the mortgage can be re-financed.

For the month of August, national foreclosure rate rose by 26.69 percent compared to the previous year. More homeowners are expected to face foreclosure with the collapse of the financial market still yet to make an impact on the housing industry.

Start your search for Illinois Foreclosures by IL Top Cities:

• Chicago Foreclosures
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One of the venues where real estate buyers and investors can grab the chance to enjoy considerable savings is at foreclosure auctions. Most of the time, lenders are able to unload their inventory of foreclosed properties in these auctions with very good outcome. But lately, things have not been going well for many lenders as the number of repossessed properties end up reverting to their lenders has increased considerably.

According to a report published by the Woodstock Institute, the number of Chicago foreclosure filings that ends up in auctions has actually risen by 98 percent from 2006 to 2007. The sudden growth in inventory without the increase in demand will certainly mean that most of these distressed homes will remain unsold during the foreclosure auction. In fact, by 2007, 94 percent of the Chicago properties sold at auctions are reverted to the lender.

For most lenders, this is a big problem especially with the costs incurred in keeping these foreclosed homes. Aside from this, Chicago communities and neighborhoods are worried that the abandoned houses will only attract undesirable individuals such as vandals and burglars. Not to mention the fact that they can be eyesores, driving down home values of neighboring properties.

Many lenders are also ill-equipped to deal with their growing inventory of foreclosure homes, making it even more difficult for them to provide care and maintenance.

Of course, not all distressed homes end up in the foreclosure auction block. Some of them are sold via a short sale transaction while others are redeemed by the original owner via a new mortgage repayment plan or loan modification program.

Local officials are urging both lenders and homeowners to work out a deal in order to avoid foreclosure filing. Both parties will surely benefit from a successful negotiation as well as the community.

Start your search for Foreclosed Homes in Illinois Top Cities:

• Chicago Foreclosed Homes
• Rockford Foreclosed Homes
• East Saint Louis Foreclosed Homes

Reeling under the effects of Chicago foreclosure homes, the city has momentarily shifted into an undeniable silence. The silence is often broken by the noise of prospective buyers, police sirens trying to chase drug dealers and thieves. The story of the southwest corner of Humboldt Park in Chicago is no different as a number of homes are lying vacant while others have been torn down. Most of the foreclosure homes can be seen in Chicago foreclosure listings and only a handful of them have been bought by inquisitive investors or first time homebuyers.

The southwest corner of Humboldt Park is now the site of abandoned homes and buildings that have been not just grown creepers, but they have become a safe haven for drug dealers according to Deon Hughes Sr., who is the pastor of the non-denominational church. Truthfully, Deon Hughes Sr. has pushed and requested to have some of these buildings and homes sealed so that he can ensure the safety of the entire community of Humboldt Park. Some believe that this is probably the beginning of a bad era when more and more Chicago cheap homes will feature in the daily newspapers.

Some of the worst hit areas include the black dominated South Shore as well as the white dominated Jefferson Park, although the minority communities are suffering the most. Half of the Latino and black population in Chicago have taken a major brunt of foreclosures and now most of their properties to have been declared as the Chicago bank owned homes.

Actually, due to the ever increasing foreclosures, cafes and restaurants have also taken a hit. Small around the corner cafes that used to be busy places with couples, lovers, friends and families pouring in for a quick bite have seen less faces since December 2007. The complete sales have gone down by 15-20 in some of the places.

People have stopped spending money and the worst of all is that they are living in their own homes in the overwhelming fear of foreclosures.

If you need proof that foreclosure homes are going to keep increasing in Chicago, just look at the numbers for 60-day mortgage delinquencies. Six major counties that make up the Chicago metropolitan area are experiencing not only rising foreclosure rates, but also rising rates in late mortgage payments that have gone unpaid for more than 60 days, indicating that an increasing number of homes are entering the foreclosure process.

Between the end of 2005 and the end of 2007, Cook County saw the largest 60-day default increase, from roughly 2% to 2.5%, while Lake County rose from 1.45% to 2.22%. More homes going into extended delinquent payment periods means homeowners are having more trouble keeping up with mortgage payments as time goes on, probably due to the fact that home values have fallen off so drastically in recent years.

Chicago currently accounts for a great deal of the 22,300 foreclosure homes in Illinois that have landed the state in the 8th spot among states with the highest foreclosure rates after the first quarter of 2008. This represents a 53% increase over the 2007 first quarter, and with more defaults now than last year as well, you can expect to see this number continue to rise until things even out in the market.

Related Links:

• Chicago Foreclosure Homes
• Illinois Foreclosure Homes
• Lake County Foreclosure Homes

The state of Illinois continues to experience the weight of the foreclosure boom, as new statistics show that the number of Illinois foreclosures increased 36% in 2007 over the 2006 total. Illinois foreclosure homes totals have not reached record highs like other parts of the country, but the market for homes there has still been severely affected. Median home values continue to fall due to a flooded market. In addition, more foreclosed properties are predicted to come about due to adjustable rate mortgages set to reset during the 2008 year.

Interestingly however, Illinois followed the same trend as other states during the month of November, during which the amount of foreclosure houses fell 15% from the October total. What’s more, foreclosed homes totals were down in the metro Chicago area nearly 22%. While some may see this as a sign of a slowing market, it doesn’t mean Chicago foreclosures or Rockford foreclosure homes or Peoria foreclosures will be in short supply. The total for Illinois foreclosed properties was still 36% higher than November of 2006, showing the gradual increase in the foreclosure inventory that has been building up in the region for sometime.

In terms of investment opportunities, Illinois house foreclosures can be a great option. Besides the world class city of Chicago, great opportunities for discounted purchase on foreclosure real estate can be found in the smaller cities, where property values may be low now, but will become quite valuable once the market turns. Investing in Springfield foreclosure homes or Aurora foreclosures could be a great chance to get in now for a low price, and provide the opportunity for big profits in the future. Illinois still fares better in the foreclosure scene than the majority of the country as well, making a quicker rebound from this situation all the more probable.