Distressed Sale Continue to Decline

In other housing news, distressed sales accounted for 8.8 percent of all home sales nationwide during April, a drop of three percent year-over-year.

In the Inland Empire, distressed sales accounted for 10 percent of all home sales during that month, CoreLogic reported Tuesday.

That was the largest drop of any major submarket from its peak rate of distressed sales: in February 2009, 76.3 percent of the homes sold in Riverside and San Bernardino counties were in the distressed category, according to CoreLogic.

A distressed sale is either a short sale, in which the property owner sells at a loss in order to avoid foreclosure, or a real estate-owned sale, in which a house is sold by a lender after the property doesn’t sell at foreclosure auction.

The lender is usually a bank, government agency or government loan insurer. Distressed sales happen in every housing market, but a decline in distressed sales – or a low amount to begin with – is generally considered one sign of a healthy market.