Foreclosures Up 25 Percent: RealtyTrac

CHICAGO (WBBM) - the pace of home foreclosures picked up significantly last month in Illinois. 

The California-based research firm RealtyTrac--www.realtytrac.com--finds that in October, foreclosures nationwide rose 5 percent over September, but in Illinois they were up nearly 25 percent over the previous month. 

Nationally, 1 in 452 homes last month went into foreclosure. In Illinois, it was 1 in 410.

RealtyTrac's senior vice president Rick Sharga says Illinois now ranks 9th in the nation for home foreclosures, with most of those in the Chicago area.  6,900 of the state's 9,800 foreclosure filings last month were in Cook County.

The only glimmers of hope, says Sharga, are that by the middle of next year, we'll have exhausted the inventory of sub-prime loans and that major lenders including Citibank, Bank of America and JP Morgan are beginning to make significant modifications in the terms of some troubled mortgages.