Feb. 12--The number of homes repossessed by banks in the Chicago area in January rose almost 10 percent from a year earlier in a pattern seen elsewhere in the nation, according to data released Thursday.
In Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake and Will counties,1,868 residential properties were taken back by lenders and became bank-owned, RealtyTrac found. That compares with 1,702 properties in January 2014 and 1,263 homes in December.
In Cook County alone, bank repossessions rose 24 percent and more may be headed into lender's hands. Last month, another 1,704 properties were scheduled for court-supervised auctions. Most homes are taken back by lenders at those auctions.
Homes now being taken back by lenders have been in the foreclosure pipeline for some time. In Illinois, a state where all foreclosures are handled by county courts, it takes an average of about 900 days for a home to go through the process, according to RealtyTrac. Average foreclosure timelines are even higher in Hawaii, New Jersey, Florida and New York.
Nationally, bank repossessions rose to a 15-month high, after 25 consecutive months of decline, to almost 37,300 homes, RealtyTrac found. "The number of future foreclosure auctions scheduled in January continued to increase in many states, foreshadowing more foreclosure spring cleaning to come in the next several months in those states," said Daren Blomquist, a RealtyTrac vice president.
There also is evidence of repossessed homes coming back on the market for the spring sales season. Thursday morning, Fannie Mae's HomePath.com site that lists its foreclosed homes for sale contained 500 just-listed Illinois properties, including 260 in Cook County alone, that are temporarily available only to potential owner-occupants and buyers using public funds.
mepodmolik@tribpub.com
