Distressed Sales Continue to Decline

Distressed sales accounted for 7.8 percent of total home sales nationally in June, according to new data from CoreLogic. This represents a 0.8 percent decline from May and a 2.2 percent drop from June 2015.

Within the distressed category, real estate-owned (REO) sales accounted for 4.9 percent, a 1.9 percent year-over-year slide and the lowest level since September 2007. Short sales accounted for 2.9 percent of total home sales in June, slight lower than May’s three percent level.

Eight states recorded year-over-year increases in their distressed sales shares in June, most notably Maryland (19.4 percent), Connecticut (18.4 percent), Michigan (17.6 percent), Illinois (15.8 percent) and New Jersey (15.3 percent). North Dakota had the smallest distressed sales share at 2.5 percent, while Florida’s 5.8 percentage point drop in its distressed sales share from a year earlier was the largest decline of any state.

On a metro basis, Maryland’s Baltimore-Columbia-Towson market had the largest share of distressed sales at 19.1 percent, followed by Illinois’ Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights market (17.7 percent), the Florida metros Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (16.6 percent) and  Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford (15.4 percent) and St Louis (13.2 percent). Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo. had the smallest distressed sales share at 2.4 percent.