Chicago Neighborhoods are Replete with Foreclosed Properties

The neighborhood of Chicago is full of foreclosed properties available for auction or sale

The US real estate sector is in the grip of a crisis. With unemployment reigning high people are faltering on mortgage payments. Hence foreclosures are at an all-time high.

Now the foreclosed homes are being put back on to the market for resale. They are being grabbed by first-time investors and genuine home buyers are finding themselves being edged out of the game. The Chicago neighborhoods are replete with foreclosed properties.

Owners are shocked to see that more and more homes are falling prey to foreclosures than ever before. By the end of ’08, 33 per cent of the foreclosures were not sold. That meant unsafe houses lining the streets.

The problem is really very acute in the Afro-American neighborhoods. In the beginning of this year, 2,099 properties in Chicago were taken over by the bank. Eighty per cent of those properties belonged to Afro-Americans. Many of the houses in the neighborhood have seen their values plunge as they lie vacant for more than one-and-a-half years.

The vice president of the Chicago think tank, Woodstock Institute Geoff Smith, says that the picture is really grim. There are a lot of people who are set to leave their homes. What are the chances of these foreclosed properties being put back into the housing market? Smith feels the chances are very bleak.

Chicago Lawn is one such area that is a symbol of the adverse trends. In this area, many properties, both belonging to single families as well as a group, are lying vacant. One house on 61st Street, for instance, is partially hidden. Its doors are open and garbage is scattered along the pathway. There is a fence and a couch is lying in the front yard.

Twenty year old Roddis Scott says that the house is not safe at night. He has been trying to keep his brothers away from the house before dusk. There are other vacant homes on the block too that the neighbors are trying to keep clean.

The institute observes that it takes about 274 days for a foreclosed property to sell in Chicago as compared to 180 four years ago. When properties are indeed sold, they are snapped up by investors and not home owners. The owners who take over the properties do not stay in these houses. They merely want to sell them off when prices escalate. Investor buyers are therefore, keeping ordinary people away from the housing market.

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