Foreclosures are surging in the Chicago suburbs, according to this report in Chicago Business (h/t: Alison Kemper). Foreclosures jumped between 25 and 70 percent in suburban counties outside the city. Foreclosure filings for the six-county metro area are the the highest since the onset of the housing crisis. The main cause of the new foreclosure wave appears tied more to the real economy than to the financial mess.
But, the most interesting item in the report is the spatial distribution of underwater homes.
In the far western suburbs along the Fox River from North Aurora to Elgin, nearly one in five homes listed for sale is a foreclosure or a short sale.
Foreclosures fell by 8.4 percent in the city of Chicago.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Just wait until many of the suburban office and industrial business parks start going into foreclosure in the US (which could well happen because of a combination of the lack of credit to re-finance commercial mortgages and/or commercial tenants no longer able to pay the rent). Last one out, turn off the lights.
May 15th, 2009 at 11:50 am
A renter friend of my wife’s in the San Diego suburbs is getting ready to buy a house. She says with the foreclosures that formerly $500,000 houses are going for $150,000. So it’s good for some. Of course, I’ll bet there are a whole new crop of speculators out there too.
Here in Portland two friends have recently sold close-in houses in weeks, one with two offers over her asking price. One of my daughters had the house they bought here two years ago appraised for a refinance and its value only dropped slightly. I haven’t seen foreclosure sales in close-in neighborhoods here, maybe because people can still sell and get out.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:58 am
The City of Chicago proper was on the leading edge of the foreclosure wave, particularly in the minority-majority areas of the city.
The far western ‘burbs are just catching up, and the City is moving to the next phase (developers going out of business permanently, and a lot less development in the near future.)
We’re seeing the end of a golden age of development in Chicago, and the face of the city is much different than it was even 5 year ago. All the development around Millenium Park and Soldier Field just makes the City look different, not to mention the new Trump Tower that gives the City height where it had none before.
BTW, I sold a house in the Northwestern Chicago ‘burbs in ‘04. I follow its value on Zillow, and it hasn’t been worth what I got for it from almost the day I sold it. So some areas of Chicago have been in decline for some time.