June 11--"Zombie" foreclosures in the Chicago area have plummeted from a year ago, but there are still more than 7,000 of the empty homes working their way through the foreclosure process.
In Cook County there were about 3,600 properties in foreclosure, according to the second-quarter report from RealtyTrac. In DuPage County there were 488. There were more than 600 in Will County and some 680 in Lake County. Kendall County had 155 and Kane County had 434 empty homes in foreclosure.
Still, all the counties recorded double-digit percentage decreases when compared to 2014's second quarter, according to the data.
"A growing number of states and cities have enacted public policy measures to combat the problem of zombie foreclosures, and we are seeing the results of those efforts in the overall decrease nationwide as well as in several hard-hit markets such as Chicago, Miami and Cleveland," said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
RealtyTrac defines a zombie foreclosure as a vacant home that is actively in the foreclosure process.
Nationally, the number of zombie properties, 127,021 in the second-quarter report, was down 10 percent from a year ago. However, half of 183 metropolitan areas studied by RealtyTrac saw a year-over-year uptick. Some of the markets with the biggest uptick included New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia and Boston.
mepodmolik@tribpub.com
