The January 2021 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report from ATTOM Data Solutions came out last week along with updated numbers for RealtyTrac (owned by ATTOM). The Biden administration also just extended the foreclosure moratorium and forbearance program through June. Nationwide foreclosure activity is still down around 80% from last year. As Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac executive vice president, said foreclosure activity is artificially suppressed as a result of these programs “…and that’s something we’ll need to deal with once these government programs expire.”

I was also able to use the latest RealtyTrac data to update my Chicago foreclosure activity chart below which is getting rather boring at this point. We are now in month 10 of record low levels. After jumping up a bit in December activity plunged back down in January.

Chicago foreclosure activity has declined dramatically since the housing crisis. However, the recent plunge is the result of the moratorium placed on foreclosures in light of the Covid-19 crisis.

Because the foreclosure activity data is messed up I look at the Black Knight December Mortgage Monitor Report which provides the latest delinquency data. That provides some indication of how big the foreclosure problem could get down the road. Their graph below shows how delinquencies spiked initially but are now slowly drifting lower. Eyeballing it it looks to me like we are back to levels of about 7 or 8 years ago.

The nation’s mortgage delinquency rate continues to improve, though it remains higher than it was 7 years ago

Chicago Shadow Inventory

I also updated my chart of Chicago homes that are in some stage of foreclosure. With the foreclosure moratorium in place these numbers have been steadily falling but they did go up by a rather large 713 units in January. You can see the uptick in the graph. Not sure what to make of that increase and it’s not really consistent with the foreclosure activity numbers but let’s see what happens over the next few months.

The number of homes in foreclosure in Chicago continues to decline during the pandemic

#Foreclosures #ChicagoForeclosures

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.