The numbers are in, and foreclosures are up.
Cook County foreclosure filings surged in March compared to February, with lenders starting 770 foreclosure proceedings last month as compared to 662 in February, records filed with the county clerk show. The total value of the more than 1,400 mortgages that lenders began foreclosing upon is over $269 million, according to The Real Deal’s analysis of the records.
In both months, U.S. Bank filed the most notices of foreclosure, with 104 foreclosure starts in February and 134 in March — nearly a 30 percent increase.
In February, Nationstar MTG had the second most at 40. Lakeview Loan Servicing had the second most in March at 46.
The hotel sector claimed the largest loan to face a foreclosure start in the clerk’s records. A notice of foreclosure was filed for the $6.5 million mortgage taken out for the Holiday Inn Express at 3477 Algonquin Road in Rolling Meadows. The borrowers, LLCs controlled by Sanjeev and Bhupendra Patel, took out the loan in May of 2019.
By comparison, February’s biggest foreclosure was a $2.2 million loan taken out for the property at 415 South Pulaski Road in Chicago. The borrower took out that loan in March of 2015.
The median mortgage amount foreclosed on also increased slightly month over month. In February, the median amount was $162,243, compared to March’s $166,822
It’s a sign of the times.
As Covid-19 pandemic protections expire and interest rates, foreclosures across the country are increasing. Irvine, California-based real estate data firm ATTOM published a report in February showing rising foreclosure rates nearly everywhere in the country — a 36 percent increase from last year and a two percent increase from January to February were among the firm’s key findings.
Locally, the situation was more dire than almost anywhere else in the nation. An August report from the Arlington Cardinal stated that one out of every 312 homes in Cook County gets foreclosed upon, placing it as the 20th highest jurisdiction out of more than 1,700 across the nation examined by ATTOM for the foreclosure study. In Illinois, Kendall, Will and Madison counties have higher foreclosure rates than Cook, according to the report.
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