Cook County Keeps Step With National Foreclosure Pace

November 5th, 2007 | Tags: Foreclosure

According to figures released by a reliable online tracking firms in Illinois 20,008 foreclosures have been listed. Of these 16,314 were from Chicago statistical area where the ratio is 1:188 – slightly worse than the national ratio of 1:196.

In Cook County the ratio is 1:194 – nearly level with the national proportion. With 40 properties on both sides of a city block it calculates to 1 foreclosure for every 5 blocks. However it must be kept in mind that foreclosures are not evenly spread out but concentrated in certain areas. In Cook County there is a total of 10,032 foreclosures with the highest numbers being in Chicago metropolitan statistical area with 9 Counties. Will County ranked second with 1,855 listings, DuPage stood third with 1,290 and Kane came fourth with 1,220 foreclosures. Across the country there were 635,159 foreclosures. 446,726 properties were included in all the foreclosure steps like default and sale notices as well as auctions and repossessions. The third quarter saw a 30% increase from the second quarter and about 100% jump from what it was during the same time in the previous year.

Another company that has been collecting data says that the largest foreclosure figures from Illinois are concentrated in zip code 60628 – Pullman, Riverdale and Roseland localities.

The worst foreclosure offenders were Nevada, California and Florida. Michigan, Ohio and Indiana are also included in the exclusive club of ten.

The spillover from the sub-prime market is also infecting the prime. Rates on these long-term mortgages (30years) fell to the lowest level in five months pointing to the slow down in the economy. On Thursday the fixed rate dropped to 6.26% from 6.33% of the previous week.

The sub-prime mortgage was introduced for those who could not avail of the prime or traditional loans because of various restrictions like income and credit history. The idea was that everyone could now realize the great dream of America – owning a house. But unfortunately the scheme went awry with predatory lending tactics and irresponsible borrowing. Goaded by commissions and investment motives lenders freely doled out loans to those who could never pay up. As soon as the honeymoon period of low interest rate was over the teaser rates were more than doubled and people fell into default. The great American dream of owning a house became the reality of American foreclosure nightmare.

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