Tuesday, Jul. 07, 2009

Foreclosure rates double in Madison County, triple in St. Clair

Numbers had declined in metro-east

After witnessing a sudden drop in foreclosures in the spring, the number of metro-east homeowners filing for foreclosure last month swung back up.

The number of filings almost doubled between May and June in Madison County and more than tripled in St. Clair County in the past two months.

There were 77 new foreclosures filed in Madison County in June after 41 had been filed in the county in May.

In St. Clair County, 94 foreclosures were filed last month after only 26 were submitted the month before.

Monroe County recorded eight foreclosures in June after filing five in May.

St. Clair and Madison counties had recorded a large surge of foreclosures in the first three months of the year. Madison County foreclosures reached 145 for March, and St. Clair County topped 163 that month. By April, the number of filings dropped to 51 in Madison County and 39 in St. Clair County.

Al Suguitan monitors home sales in Madison County and surrounding counties as the executive director of the Greater Gateway Association of Realtors in Glen Carbon. He said the sudden increase is telling of the local housing market. "That is significant," he said. "That really is significant."

In Belleville, Realtor Association of Southwestern Illinois President Dan Tatum said he was disappointed with the latest numbers.

"The increase is disturbing but not totally surprising," Tatum said. "It will, again, be interesting to see how this continues to develop."

The metro-east's rise in foreclosures may coincide with the recent increase in unemployment, which reached its highest level in more than two decades for the month of May. On June 26, the Illinois Department of Employment Security reported that 8.2 percent were jobless in the eight-county metro-east region. This marked a 22-year high for the month since a 9.1 percent rate was recorded in May 1987 and is an increase from the 7.7 percent rate reported in April and 6.2 percent recorded in May 2008.

The unemployment rate in St. Clair County jumped from 6.9 percent to 8.5 percent between May 2008 and May 2009. In Madison County, the jobless rate jumped from 5.9 percent to 8.5 percent in that span.