The nation continues to improve, clearing out thousands of foreclosures each month, but some states and cities are doing better than others.

In May, the national foreclosure inventory continued its 31 consecutive months of year-over-year declines, dropping 4.8 percent, according to CoreLogic’s National Foreclosure Report.

Chicagoland maintains a modest foreclosure inventory, with foreclosed properties making up 2.8 percent of the area’s total inventory. Still, in the last 12 months, Chicagoland real estate professionals have pushed an impressive 11,813 foreclosures through to completion. Serious delinquency rate in the city remains higher than the national average at 6.6 percent.

A Collective Recovery

Nationally, the recovery is taking the slow and steady route, the report suggests. In the last twelve months:

• 47,000 foreclosures were completed, which is down approximately 5,000 from the same time last year.
• The seriously delinquent rate dropped to 4.4 percent. The number of mortgages in serious delinquency has declined 23.9 percent since the same time last year.
• In May, approximately 660,000 homes in the U.S. were in some stage of foreclosure, which is down compared to the 1 million in May 2013.

Non-Judicial vs. Judicial

While the nation is collectively regaining its pre-bubble prominence, individual markets are failing to follow a uniform pace, specifically judicial states, which require foreclosures to be preceded over by a court.

“Significant gains have been made in the last year to reduce the foreclosure stock,” says Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Yet, these improvements are occurring disproportionately in non-judicial states. The foreclosure inventory in judicial states is averaging 2.1 percent, which is more than twice the 0.9 percent average that is occurring in non-judicial states.”

CoreLogic President and CEO Anand Nallathambi mimics Fleming’s concerns, pointing out that the pace of completed foreclosures slowed a bit in May, but adds that the respite is likely only temporary.

“There is still much more hard work to do to clear the backlog of foreclosed properties,” Nallathambi says. “Although difficult, we need to continue to aggressively clear distressed homes to ensure the return of a healthy market.”