Foreclosure Filings, Auctions Both Up In McHenry County

McHenry County foreclosure filings rose 9.4 percent this year through June compared to the same six months last year according to a report released last week by Chicago's Woodstock Institute. The increase was second only to DuPage County's 17.5 percent jump in the Chicago region.   On average, the six-county metro area saw only a 3.1 percent increase in foreclosure filings, according to the Institute's calculations.

“While new foreclosure filings are generally stabilizing at elevated levels, several low-wealth communities...are again seeing increases in filings,” said said Spencer Cowan, Vice President of Research at Woodstock Institute.

What looks like worsening conditions may only reflect the end of the "robosigning" controversy that depressed foreclosures for over a year. In Spring 2010 a few foreclosure attorneys found some mortgage companies didn't have the paperwork to prove they were the ones homeowners weren't paying.  A scandal erupted and by Fall 2010 most major lenders throttled back new foreclosure filings until a settlement agreement was reached this February.  Robosigning never became an issue in McHenry County but the numbers suggest it was caught up in the national filing hiatus.

Foreclosures filed before and early in the robosigning scandal continued through the courts, though, and the Woodstock Institute reported McHenry County mortgage auctions rose 102 percent in the first half of 2012 over last year.  That was about average for the Chicago metro region where increases ranged from 158 percent in Lake County to only 46.9 in Kane. Generally, "The number of auctions is at a level not seen since its peak in 2010 before the robosigning scandal broke,"said Cowan.

Village clerks have been reporting a big jump in foreclosed notices this year and the latest numbers confirm their observations.  Algonquin saw 57 completed foreclosures through June according to the Woodstock Institute tabulation, the same number as Huntley but Lake in the Hills saw 88 during the period.  Algonquin's foreclosures mark only a 32.6 percent jump from the first half of last year but Huntley's represent a 171.4 percent increase.  LITH's was a 104.7 percent boost.

Back to the new filings, Algonquin saw 142 during the year's first half, a 20.3 percent increase. There were 119 new filings in Huntley, a jump of 21.4 percent.  New filings against Lake in the Hills homes numbered 191 but that was only a 1.6 percent increase from last year.