New foreclosure data show that suburban homeowners are increasingly falling behind on their mortgage payments. 
 

According to the housing research thinktank Woodstock Institute, Kane County foreclosure filings almost doubled in the third quarter from the same period last year.

That was the biggest spike in the six-county Chicago region. 

I called up an Aurora-based non-profit, the Joseph Corporation, to talk with Jerria Donelson there about foreclosures in Kane County.

First I asked her job title.

DONELSON: Uh, my title is actually homebuyer education.

GROSS: which is kind of out of date

DONELSON: Yeah, yeah.

Donelson says these days almost all she does is foreclosure prevention counseling.

She says the problem is no longer subprime loans with gigantic interest rates.

DONELSON: These are FHA loans, these are VA loans, these are reasonable loans but if you reduce my interest rate to zero percent, if I don’t have a job, it doesn’t matter what my interest rate is, I can’t afford this mortgage.

Donelson’s experience mirrors Woodstock Institute’s findings: the foreclosure crisis has expanded to include middle-class people who have lost their jobs.

In the third quarter, DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties also saw big jumps.

Geoff Smith of Woodstock Institute says that’s partly due to government programs that delayed foreclosure filings in the spring.

That pushed them into the third quarter. Woodstock also looked at Chicago as well as the suburbs. They found that some of the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods actually had a decrease in foreclosure filings.

Smith says that’s because many homes have already been taken over by the banks.

Now those communities are struggling with vacant property and disinvestment.

SMITH: My concern is still about areas that have high concentrations of foreclosure, we have questions about whether or not there’s going to be bank activity in those communities, whether new loans will be made in those communities either for home purchase or investment for rental properties. 
 

Smith says when the economy bounces back, higher-income suburbs should recover quickly.

He says he’s worried the same won’t be true for some lower-income communities.