Sales of distressed homes decline

Distressed sales accounted for 11.1 percent of all single-family home sales in the United States during April, according to data released Thursday.

That represented a three percent drop year-over-year and a 1.5 percent drop compared with March, according to CoreLogic’s latest report on distressed property sales.

Distressed sales are either sales of bank-owned properties or short sales, the latter being sales in which the owner takes a loss in order to raise quick cash. Distressed home sales usually drop between March and April because of seasonal factors, the report stated.

Bank-owned sales accounted for 7.4 of all distressed sales in April, while short sales made up 3.4 percent. At their peak, in January 2009, distressed sales accounted for 32.4 percent of all home sales, according to CoreLogic.

Of the 25 major metropolitan areas surveyed by CoreLogic, the Inland Empire showed the greatest improvement during April.

At its peak in February 2009 distressed sales made up 76.3 percent of the region’s home sales. By April of this year that number shrank to 12.7 percent, CoreLogic stated.

CoreLogic is based in Irvine. It provides real estate information and other property-based data to public and private-sector clients worldwide.