More than 9,000 homes in Illinois were scheduled to go to foreclosure auction or were repossessed by banks in September, as mortgage lenders continued to push foreclosures through the system to ease the backlog of failed loan modifications, RealtyTrac reported Thursday.

Nationally for the entire third quarter, the company said, the number of foreclosure auctions scheduled nationally totaled more than 372,000, the highest quarterly total since the company began tracking foreclosures in 2005. Meanwhile, the more than 288,000 bank repossessions hit a record high for the third quarter.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, almost 26,000 Illinois homes were scheduled to be auctioned or were repossessed by lenders. Get the full story »