Chicago, IL (PRWEB) April 30, 2014 -- The Illinois Foreclosure Listing Service has compiled statistics for auction sales, new foreclosures and REO numbers in March 2014. Last month had similar numbers to February of this year, but, ultimately, couldn’t quite compete.
Auction sales dropped by 0.56 percent from February to March, but because of the miniscule margin of loss, that number says little about what is happening in Chicago foreclosures. On a more specific, County-by-County basis, the numbers are slightly more encouraging. Though some of the larger counties like Cook and Dupage experienced losses (5.03 and 33.33 percent respectively), other mid-range and small counties in the Chicagoland area did well in March. One of these was the quick-changing Will County. While Will County experienced a 46.03 percent drop in sales to investors from January to February, it was able to rebound in March, increasing sales by 44.12 percent and making up almost all of February’s losses. The areas covered by Kendall County also did well; they saw a 60.00 percent increase in sales in March.
The number of new foreclosures for March increased by 3.25 percent from the February statistics. Because the margin of change is so small in the larger counties, it again leaves it to the less-populous and mid-size surrounding counties to have a larger impact on the overall numbers for March. For example, Cook County actually saw a slight decrease in new foreclosures for the month (0.27 percent), as did Kane County, but because of an influx of new foreclosures in Will, Lake and McHenry, the overall numbers showed that new foreclosures are up. Will County had 27.04 percent more new foreclosures enter the market in March, while McHenry had 13.39 percent more and Lake increased by 7.73 percent.
REO properties (properties that didn’t sell at auction and reverted to the lender) also had a big impact on March statistics. However, the 13.36 percent increase in REO properties was a mixed blessing for the month. While it is usually not good for the number of REO properties to increase, in this case, it helped the number of total completed foreclosures for March increase, which means there is less foreclosure stock than there was in February. In fact, the combined total of foreclosures resolved through sales to auction and by becoming REO properties helped the total number of resolved foreclosures for March outstrip those in February by 10.92 percent.
As for the year-over-year statistics, March of this year is still beating the March 2013 numbers by a significant margin, especially when it comes to new foreclosures on the market. From last March to this March, the number of new foreclosures in the Chicagoland area has decreased by 39.17 percent, while the number of properties sold to investors has jumped by 6.95 percent in 2014. So, despite lethargic changes from Cook and Dupage counties, the other counties surrounding Chicago had a big say in how things turned out in March and while the changes don’t seem that big from February to March 2014, it’s obvious that Chicago has been able to maintain a brighter outlook than it had in March 2013.
Peter Georgiev, W3 LLC, http://ilfls.com/, +1 (312) 380-9788, [email protected]
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