By Tony Arnold

October 28, 2010

A new report shows the foreclosure crisis hit Chicago particularly hard this summer.

The numbers from RealtyTrac show the summer in Chicago was not a pleasant one for many home owners. The city and its suburbs saw a 35 percent increase in foreclosures compared to a year ago. That’s the second highest jump in the country among metro areas.

“These trends are tied to continued high levels of under water home owners and continued high levels of unemployment and the persistence of those two factors,” said Geoff Smith, who follows the housing market at the Woodstock Institute.

Smith says the Chicago region’s unemployment rate has not changed much in the past year and it’s catching up to residents who have mortgages.

Chicago is also toward the top of the list of homes repossessed. Lenders took back more than 12,000 homes in the third quarter. As a state, almost 48,000 people received foreclosure filings in Illinois. Only three other states had more than that.

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