New report from CoreLogic details the slow, but steady recovery of the nation’s housing market as states plow through pending foreclosures – how did your city do?

As one of 24 judicial states, which require all foreclosures be approved by a judge, Illinois has been slow to recover from a crippling recession that left thousands without homes – and Chicagoland has not been immune.

In April of last year, as agencies and brokerage firms were battling their way through a thick, murky sea of impending foreclosures, Chicagoland’s foreclosure inventory stood at just under five percent, according to new report from CoreLogic.  It’s been a slow process, working through each separate property, but over the last 12 months nearly 12,000 foreclosures have been completed in the city, bringing the remaining inventory down to 2.9 percent.

Serious delinquencies in Chicagoland remain a looming issue at 6.8 percent, but continued growth and recovery are likely to drive that number down in the months to come.

A National Look

CoreLogic’s report, while breaking the data down state-to-state, and in some instances metro-to-metro, also included broader figures to help paint a national picture:

• Since March, foreclosure inventory has shrunk by 4.7 percent, down 35 percent since April 2013.
• For the first time since Sept. 2013, serious delinquencies in the country are at 4.5 percent.
• The national foreclosure rate is now back to Nov. 2008 levels.
• 46,000 foreclosures were completed nationwide in April.

Though Slow, the Recovery Is Underway

Though some may be recovering more quickly than others, it seems that across the board states are working through foreclosures faster than they come up.

“Over the past 12 months, completed foreclosures fell to 599,000, the lowest level since the Great Recession began in 2007,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “At the current pace of completed foreclosures, and given the current foreclosure inventory, it will take 14 months to move all of the foreclosed inventory through the pipeline.”

Mimicking Khater’s optimistic tone, CoreLogic CEO and President Anand Nallathambi added that the U.S. has now “registered two and a half years of continuous decreases in the number of homeowners who are in some stage of the foreclosure process.”

“This consistent decline means fewer Americans are experiencing the distress of delinquency and default,” he said. “The recovery may be slow, but it is steady.”