Almost seven years after the collapsing of the housing bubble, and CoreLogic says the nation is recovery swiftly – maybe too swiftly, in fact.

On Thursday, CoreLogic released its June National Foreclosure report, which showed minimal but steady year-over-year declines in foreclosure inventories in every regional market – though, some were more significant than others.

In Chicagoland, researchers found the city’s overall foreclosure inventory had finally dropped below the three percent threshold to 2.7 percent, a 1.7 percent decrease year-over-year. Since June 2013, Chicago has completed nearly 12,000 foreclosures, the fourth highest number in the country, while the serious delinquency rate remains at 6.5 percent – well above the 4.3 percent national average.

National Gains

CoreLogic’s report goes on to diagnose the country as a whole, highlighting several changes to the national foreclosure landscape, most positive, such as:

• Completed foreclosures year-over-year decreased by nearly 10 percent, bringing the national figure from 54,000 to 49,000.
• As of June 2014, an estimated 648,000 homes in the U.S. were in some stage of foreclosure, a year-over-year decrease of 35 percent.
• Of all homes with a mortgage, forclosure inventory made up 1.7 percent, a considerable 2.5 percent year-over-year decrease.

Good But Could Be Better

The figures presented by CoreLogic represent 32 straight months of year-over-year declines in the foreclosure rate, and while such news warrants celebration, Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, points out that the numbers still aren’t meeting normal, pre-crisis levels.

“The total number of homes still in the foreclosure process remains almost four times as high as the average in the early 2000s,” Fleming says. “Additionally, there is concern over whether or not we can maintain this pace of improvement as the foreclosure inventory becomes more concentrated in judicial states with lengthier, more complex processes and timelines.”

CoreLogic President and CEO Anand Nallathambi lent credence to Fleming’s statements, saying that the “Northeast, Florida and the Pacific Northwest remain elevated,” but added, “The great news here is that the basic underpinings of the housing market are strengthening, but there is still work to do.”