Talking Points
- Distressed sales, which include REO and short sales, accounted for 8.4 percent of total home sales nationally in May 2016, down 2.1 percentage points from May 2015 and down 1 percentage point from April 2016.
- Within the distressed category, REO sales accounted for 5.4 percent and short sales accounted for 3 percent of total home sales in May 2016. The REO sales share was 1.7 percentage points below the May 2015 share and is the lowest for the month of May since 2007. The short sales share fell below 4 percent in mid-2014 and has remained in the 3-4 percent range since then.
- At its peak in January 2009, distressed sales totaled 32.4 percent of all sales with REO sales representing 27.9 percent of that share. While distressed sales play an important role in clearing the housing market of foreclosed properties, they sell at a discount to non-distressed sales, and when the share of distressed sales is high, it can pull down the prices of non-distressed sales.
- California had the largest improvement of any state from its peak distressed sales share, falling 60.4 percentage points from its January 2009 peak of 67.5 percent.