Foreclosure map: Cook County takeaways rose in October

More lenders want the keys back for Chicago area properties.

Snapping a monthslong decline in foreclosure starts, creditors filed new foreclosure notices at a higher clip in Cook County last month compared to September, public records show.

Lenders started 284 foreclosure court proceedings in October, up from 251 in September. While the pickup in takeaway attempts was up last month, it was still down from August, when lenders began 491 such court proceedings, public records show.

The total value of the mortgages underlying October’s foreclosure efforts was just more than $323 million, far outstripping September’s total of $80 million. The jump is mostly due to a $230 million Loop office foreclosure that began for 161 North Clark Street.

Here’s where foreclosure court cases began in October:

The median mortgage amount subject to foreclosure cases started in October was $179,911, extending an upward trend from previous months. By comparison, the median foreclosure amounts for July, August and September were $161,947, $165,000 and $171,845 respectively, TRD’s analysis shows.

Last month, Newrez LLC led the most foreclosure starts, with 29 notices filed, followed by U.S. Bank with 17.

The borrower in the biggest foreclosure case filed last month for 161 North Clark is a venture of the South Korean postal service that decided to walk away from the asset instead of trying to turn around its troubled financial situation. The lender, French financial company Société Générale, filed the complaint.

The foreclosure proceeding initiated by Société Générale sets a record for the year’s biggest so far. Since May, Adventus Realty Trust had been the borrower facing largest debt subject to a foreclosure at $114 million for its delinquent loan on the Riverway office building near O’Hare International Airport.

In August, Skokie-based American Landmark Properties had the biggest loan to enter foreclosure proceedings at $96 million.

Nationwide, new foreclosure filings continued their month-over-month increase, according to Irvine, California-based real estate data firm ATTOM. One house out of every 4,051 nationwide had a notice of foreclosure filed against it last month, its report found. Like previous months, Illinois had among the highest rates of foreclosure, and Chicago specifically saw an uptick in foreclosure filings, the report showed.

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