● CNN Money: Treasury tightens screws on mortgage firms
● CNN Money Poll: What should the Obama administration do to cut down on foreclosures?
● makinghomeaffordable.gov: Obama Administration kicks off mortgage modification conversion drive
● Business Week: Treasury’s Mortgage Modification: Empty Threats?
● Associated Press: Gov’t unveils rules to speed up ‘short sales’
● CNBC: FHA to Toughen Mortgage Rules in Lenders Crackdown
● BlownMortgage.com: Despite loan modifications, foreclosures will continue to rise through 2010

As usual, I am neither endorsing, nor recommending any of the above news sources or personal commentaries. I am simply compiling them here for your convenience. Please read them, and kindly form your own opinion.

And by the way, I am also a Certified Distressed Property Expert®, should you require one. What is a CDPE®?

For the past year and a half, the residents of the tiny North Edgebrook subdivision at the intersection of Touhy and Meade/McVicker/Sherwin Aves. had been involved in a “tug of war” with the owner of the commercial building at 6000 W Touhy Ave which has been home to a baseball training academy, as well as a local bank and a physical therapy office. The owner of the baseball training academy, Gus Tountas, who is also the owner of the building, wanted to convert the baseball training academy into a “LA Fitness” health club, for which he was required to build a 300-car parking garage. The residents of the subdivision fought these plans “tooth and nail”, in the form of petitions and protests vis-a-vis 41st Ward Ald. Brian Doherty. For the time being, it appears as though the residents have won this battle. On 60646 Blog, you can read about the details of this saga here, here, and here.

Today, “Chicago Real Estate Daily” – a daily real estate publication by Crain’s Chicago Business – reports that a foreclosure lawsuit in the amount of $8.55 Million has been filed by Harris Bank against 6000 W Touhy Ave. The CRED article outlines the details of the case itself, as well as some of the circumstances that have led to this foreclosure action. But I’m missing a discussion / thoughts of the impact of this foreclosure lawsuit on the residential home values bordering on this shopping center. Perhaps it’s too early to discuss this, because the lawsuit was only recorded on September 29, 2009, which was right around the time when I found out about it first, as I subscribe to RealtyTrac’s distressed property service. But CRED’s article quotes one of Mr. Tountas’ attorneys as saying:

“We’re trying to work it out with them,” (with Harris Bank) says attorney Richard M. Varchetto of Elmhurst, who represents Mr. Tountas. If negotiations are unsuccessful, Mr. Tountas intends to fight the foreclosure case.

You gotta hand it to Mr. Tountas: He is a fighter. Let’s hope that he has more luck than he had in his fight with the subdivision residents, over the 300-car parking garage.

Our blog has been googled quite a bit lately for the term “Foreclosures in 60646″, so I thought I dedicate a post solely to cover this aspect of the residential real estate market in zip code 60646.
As you know, per one of the conditions of our firm’s membership with RealtyTrac, we’re not at liberty to publicly disclose the addresses/details of distressed properties on 60646 Blog or any other website, for that matter, unless of course, they’re already listed for sale in the MLS.
However, recently, RealtyTrac made a cool new tool available to its members, showing the stats for pre-foreclosures, bank-owned (REO’s) properties, and those headed for auction, by zip code. I thought I’d share some of these stats with you. For 60646, the picture is somewhat ugly, but compared to some other neighborhoods on the north side of Chicago, it looks like we’re dodging the bullets, for the most part.

Adding up the figures in the pre-foreclosure, auction, and REO categories by month, we can see the total activity for distressed properties in 60646, since last September. Not sure, what’s going on with the spike in activity last June, but judging by the figures in the chart above, the bulk of June’s activity was due to newly filed foreclosure lawsuits (pre-foreclosures) which may have been the result of resetting adjustable mortgage rates in the spring.

Obviously, RealtyTrac does not break out zip code 60646 by Edgebrook, Sauganash, and Gladstone Park, because they have bigger fish to fry But the image below (courtesy of RealtyTrac) might provide you with a rough idea of the neighborhoods in 60646 where the majority of distressed properties are located. I believe that I’ve shrunk/manipulated this image sufficiently so as to make it impossible to know the exact locations (let alone details) of distressed properties, however, I’m letting you know in advance that if RealtyTrac notifies me that they don’t like what I’ve done here, the image below will disappear from this post. Now that we’ve got this out of the way , here’s what I’m seeing: Edgebrook, with the exception of a few properties in North Edgebrook and Edgebrook Towers, is hardly suffering from foreclosure activity. Sauganash shows signs of a bit more activity, though mostly pre-foreclosures. This is in line with what I’m seeing in the MLS for listed properties in Saugansh: more short sales than bank-owned properties. South Edgebrook and Gladstone Park though show a sizeable number of distressed properties: Mostly pre-foreclosures, but also a respectable number of properties that are headed for auction.

As I’ve written before, if you’re interested in acquiring a distressed property in Edgebrook, Sauganash, or elsewhere in Illinois, contact me. I’ll be happy to guide you through the distressed property maze.

With pre-foreclosure and REO (lender-owned) properties at an all-time high, our real estate firm RE/MAX has forged a partnership with the nation’s largest provider of real estate foreclosure information, RealtyTrac. We now have access to all details of distressed residential properties in Illinois, whether they are in pre-foreclosure, headed for a trustee sale (auction), or are outright owned by lenders (REO).

Unfortunately, RealtyTrac’s fairly strict terms of use prohibit any member of RealtyTrac’s service from making this information available on any other website. It’s understandable: They are in the business of selling real estate data, and we recognize and respect that. Therefore, you won’t be seeing any information about these properties on 60646 Blog (unless they’re in 60646 and listed in the MLS). I would like to point out that some of RealtyTrac’s listings also appear on our MLS, as I found out cross-checking the data yesterday. For example, some properties in our MLS marked as “short sale” are clearly identified in RealtyTrac’s database as pre-foreclosures (Notice of Default, Lis Pendens). And then, some lender-owned properties in RT’s database that are listed for sale with a Realtor are clearly marked as such in the MLS. The major difference, as I could ascertain, is that RT’s data contains a ton of more information, such as lender information, outstanding liens and amounts, property owner information etc.

Obviously, this is a service that we pay for (and it’s not cheap). So if you’re an investor or home buyer, and you’re seriously interested in acquiring a distressed property in Illinois, we’d be more than happy to provide you with RT’s information, however, in return we would ask that you work with us exclusively when you’re ready to purchase a property that’s listed in RT’s inventory. Contact us, to find out more.