Distressed Home Sales Continue to Decline

Fewer distressed sales are cluttering up the housing market, according to new data from CoreLogic.

Distressed sales accounted for 10.3 percent of total home sales in December 2015, a 1.5 percent downturn from November and a 2.8 percent drop from December 2014 and down 1.5 percent from a year earlier.

Among the distressed categories, real estate-owned (REO) sales accounted for 6.9 percent of total home sales in December—the lowest level for this category in eight years—while short sales accounted for 3.4 percent. All but eight states recorded lower distressed sales shares in December 2015 compared with a year earlier, with Maryland (at 20.2 percent), Connecticut (19.2 percent) and Florida (18.5 percent) having the greatest level of distressed sales.