For almost the entire period from mid-2020 to recently, the real estate market has been more than healthy. The S&P Case-Shiller home price index was up 20% year over year for many months. However, the low interest rate mortgages that fueled that are gone. As the real estate market has started to level, foreclosures have begun to rise. Poor cities tend to have the highest foreclosure levels today. Peoria is at the top of a new list of foreclosure rates.

Real estate research firm ATTOM’s Q3 2022 Foreclosure Market Report is titled “U.S. Foreclosure Activity Continues to Increase Quarterly Nearing Pre-Pandemic Levels.” If the past is any indication, a recession and higher interest rates will worsen this.

ATTOM defines foreclosure filings as “default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions.” Based on this, there was one foreclosure for every 93,634 properties. Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence for ATTOM, commented: “Foreclosure activity is reflecting other aspects of the economy, as unemployment rates continue to be historically low, and mortgage delinquency rates are lower than they were before the COVID-19 outbreak.”

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Peoria had a foreclosure filing for every 472 housing units in the third quarter. It was followed by another poor city, Cleveland at 589, then Jacksonville, N.C., at 593; Columbia, S.C., at 599, and Rockford, Ill., at 602.

Peoria has a population of nearly 113,000. It is about equidistant from Chicago and St. Louis. It has an unusually high unemployment rate of 19.7%, according to the Census Bureau. The median household income of $51,736 is well below the national number.