Has the sun set on Kankakee? Local officials refute Yahoo!'s real estate report

Kankakee received a bleak distinction when a recent CBS News report  — that many saw published on Yahoo! — ranked it the city least likely in the nation to rebound from a slumping real estate market.

Home values in Kankakee have plunged more than 39 percent since 2008, and the likelihood of them ever fully rebounding are not good, according to data compiled for the national news network.

Numbers provided by a local elators group, however, are much different and show an overall drop of only about 6 percent.

Without listing specific sale prices, the national report indicates that the 39.2 percent drop of the average sale price of a Kankakee home is the sharpest decline of any city in the country.

"Unless the city sees a serious economic turnaround, it will be nearly impossible to recover that 39 percent drop in home values," the report concluded.

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