Hundreds of thousands of potential homebuyers will be boomeranging back to the housing market over the next seven years.

The Chicagoland area is poised to see more than 300,000 potential homebuyers enter the housing market fray over the next seven years, according to new analysis from RealtyTrac.

The source of that magnificent number is “boomerang buyers,” the term used for consumers who, after losing their home to a short sale or foreclosure during the housing downturn, now boast the adequate credit scores to qualify for a home purchase; at 300,147 potential boomerang buyers, Chicagoland could see the fourth-biggest amount in the nation.

Boomerang Buyers – The Next Great Source of Housing Demand?

This year, RealtyTrac reports, the first wave of boomerang buyers will return to the housing market, given that it normally takes seven years for consumers to repair to credit and finances and that the nation’s foreclosure activity peaked from 2007 to 2014. Nationwide, RealtyTrac estimates that 7.3 million homeowners will return to housing between 2015 and 2022.

“While millennials have gotten a lot of attention lately as the generation whose below-normal homeownership rates are changing the landscape of the U.S. real estate market, the boomerang buyers — who are primarily Generation Xers or Baby Boomers — represent a massive wave of potential pent-up demand that could shape the housing market in the short term even more dramatically,” RealtyTrac’s report stated.

And U.S. Census data confirms those trends – among Generation X, the homeownership rate is 11 percent below historical averages, while Millennial homeownership is 10 percent below historical averages.

See our graph below for an idea on how our metro area compares with the rest of the nation: