How Long Will It Take For The Bank To Foreclose On A Home?

There is no question that if you live in Illinois, you may have time on your side. According to Realty Trac, an online listing firm for distressed property, says that the foreclosure process took an average of 494 days.


The time has increased steadily since the first quarter of 2007, when the average foreclosure took just 243 days and the housing crisis was still in its early stages.

On a positive note, this lag may be good for homeowners who are struggling to keep their homes, catch up on their mortgage payments. On the flip side, this gives homeowners who do not have the ability to “catch up”, or just give up and decide not to pay because they owe more than their home is worth, a “strategic default”, more time to live rent-free. Housing experts say this could be bad for the market overall because the longer it takes for the market to absorb distressed properties, the longer it could take for home prices to stabilize and further delay the recovery of the housing market.


The foreclosure process has slowed across the country as lenders try to keep up with the large volume of cases as well as the delays caused by the re-examination of many cases due to the robo-signing controversy. But, Illinois is especially slow because it is one of the few states that require lenders to work through the courts to foreclose on properties. Other, “non-judicial” states allow lenders to avoid many of the time-consuming legal steps, like a sheriff's sale, which is why the process in those states is much shorter.


As a side note, the five states with the longest foreclosure times are all judicial states.


Government officials in Illinois have also intervened to slow down the foreclosure process. In 2009, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart briefly halted evictions, while Gov. Pat Quinn signed a measure giving delinquent borrowers grace period of up to three months.


Also, some lenders have decided it's not worth the time or the cost to foreclose, choosing to halt or delay the process which leaves properties in legal limbo. These “lender walkaways” have become a big problem in many struggling Chicago neighborhoods. This “ignoring” of the problem results in vacant homes that become the city's problem.