Distressed, Institutional Sales Increased in 2013

Sales of distressed properties made up a<blarger share of home sales in 2013 than in 2012 RealtyTrac said today.  Short sales and sales of bank-owned realrnestate (REO) together made up 16.2 percent of residential sales during the year,rnan increase from both 2012 (14.5 percent) and 2011 (15.2 percent.)  </p

REO sales during the year totaledrnmore than 436,000 units or 9.3 percent of all U.S. residential sales, up fromrn9.1 percent in 2012 and 8.7 percent in 2011.  There were more than 256,000 short sales (wherernthe lender agrees to accept less than the outstanding balance of the seller’srnloan) accounting for 5.8 percent of all sales compared to 4.9 percent of allrnsales in 2012 and 6.0 percent in 2011.</p

“It may surprise some to seerndistressed sales rising in 2013 given that new foreclosure activity dropped torna seven-year low for the year,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president atrnRealtyTrac. “And while short sales did trend lower in the second half of thernyear, there are still more than 1.2 million properties in the foreclosurernprocess or bank-owned, providing a sizable pool of inventory that the housingrnmarket is in the process of absorbing. Meanwhile, non-distressed sellers havernnot listed their homes for sale in droves, helping to keep the distressed sharernof sales at a stubbornly high level.”</p

In addition to short sales and REOrnmore than 48,000 properties sold to third parties at foreclosure auction inrn2013.  This was 1.0 percent ofrnresidential sales compared to 0.5 percent in the two prior years. </p

Along with annual statistics RealtyTrac’srnU.S. Residential & Foreclosure SalesrnReport included data for December. rnSales of single-family homes, condos and townhomes during the month werernat a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.17 million, less than a 1 percentrnincrease from November and a 10 percent jump from December 2012.   </p

Salesrnof REO accounted for 9.3 percent of December sales compared to 8.7 percent inrnNovember and 9.2 percent a year earlier. rnShort sales had a 5.7 percent market share, up from 5.1 percent inrnNovember but a full percentage point lower than in December 2012.   Salesrnat foreclosure auctions accounted for 1.2 percent of salesrnin December, up from 1.1 percent in November and 0.8 percent in December 2012.</p

The national median sales price for residentialrnproperties in December was $168,391, virtually unchanged from November and up 2rnpercent from December 2012. The median price of a distressed property wasrn$108,494, 38 percent less than the median price of a non-distressed property,rn$174,401.</p

Institutional investment inrnresidential properties continued to rise with 7.3 percent of sales in 2013rngoing to investors who purchased 10 or more properties within a year.  This was an increase from 5.8 percent in 2012rnand 5.1 percent in 2011. In December institutional investors accounted for 7.9rnpercent of sales, up from 7.2 percent in November.

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