Chicago-area foreclosures ballooned in March and April.
Cook County recorded 1,030 foreclosure lawsuits started by lenders in March and 909 in April, shattering February’s total of 317 and January’s 265. This March and April also sharply exceeded the number of foreclosures started in the same periods of last year.
The total mortgaged value behind March and April’s foreclosure efforts totaled $237 million and $211 million, respectively, excluding the biggest mortgage for a Loop office property that was hit with a foreclosure lawsuit in April. Even without the nine-figure office loan falling into default, it’s a drastic increase from February’s $119 million and January’s $174 million.
Here’s where foreclosure court cases began in March and April:
The median foreclosure value in March was $174,000 and $169,000 in April, also slightly higher than February’s $166,822, but less than January’s $192,250. For comparison, December’s median amount was $170,100 and November’s was $180,000.
Alvarez & Marsal was March’s biggest borrower to fall, with Delaware-based Wilmington Trust starting foreclosure proceedings on an $18.7 million mortgage originally issued in late 2014.
April’s top foreclosure was on a whopping $305 million mortgage, with Bank of America alleging that Chicago-based GEM Realty and San Francisco-based Farallon Capital Management still owe $275 million.
U.S. Bank again filed the most foreclosure complaints for March and April, totaling 163 and 145, respectively. It’s an increase from their total of 48 in February.
Nationwide, foreclosure filings dropped four percent from March to April, and are down four percent from last year, according to Irvine, California-based real estate data firm ATTOM.
Chicago has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, according to the report, with one property out of 2,189 facing foreclosure.
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Foreclosure map: Cook County takeaways jump
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