Picking up where we left off for last week, we take you through the world of new foreclosures and REO properties in January and February of this year.
Unfortunately, there is more bad news. The number of new foreclosures on the market
also increased during January. In 2014,
there was a 13.52% decrease in new foreclosures during the first month of the
year, but this year was, again, unable to match that standard. Instead, January 2015 had a 3.26% increase in
new foreclosures – an ominous sign for the rest of this year. Although new incoming stock is a positive for
investors, this increase in new foreclosures could mean bad things for the
overall real estate market.
In terms of REO properties, the first two months of 2015
cancelled each other out. In January,
there was a 21.94% increase in REO properties, but then February saw a 21.82%
decrease, leaving that part of the market basically the same.
Most of the above information is contradictory – great
increases followed quickly by crushing decreases in sales, REOs and new
foreclosures. Chicagoans may have to
wait until the end of March to see what this year will look like for Illinois
foreclosures in the Chicagoland area, as the first two months of data for the
year are often skewed in one direction or the other.