Mandatory Counseling to Reduce Illinois Foreclosures
Since last year, Illinois has suffered the same fate as the rest of the nation with regard to increasing foreclosures rate. But the situation is definitely improving. As of last May, the state has the 13th highest foreclosures rate, down four places or at least an 18 percent decrease from April. The reason for the improvement can be attributed to the mandatory counseling program that owners and borrowers have to complete to avoid Illinois foreclosures.
Owners already facing foreclosure may consider several options to avoid foreclosure. Sadly, not all options would actually be effective. Some of the owners would end up with more problems because they did not really know what they were getting into. The counseling programs that the state officials have come up with will provide these owners with educated decisions.
Now, they could choose to negotiate with their lenders to re-finance their loans and know what they are getting into. Some owners with a little equity tied on their property can also try to sell their homes with the help of brokers such as Foreclosure Listings Nationwide, without worrying if they are making a mistake.
On the other hand, borrowers who are on the verge of taking out a loan, will now be well-informed about the mortgage. Lenders are also being held responsible for making sure that they enforce strict underwriting guidelines in order to determine paying capacity of the borrowers. In the past, borrowers will simply leave everything up to the lenders and the lenders just focus on the commission they are going to get out of the transaction. The result is the high foreclosures rate, mostly coming from the subprime mortgage market.
For the record, there were 709 homes that entered into the REO stage. Based on this, there is approximately one foreclosure filing for every 717 homes in Illinois as of May.
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