Nearly half of SoCal sales are foreclosed homes
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The region’s housing market is increasingly dominated by sales of bank-owned, foreclosed houses, which made up almost half of the homes sold in August, according to MDA DataQuick’s report on existing home sales. And despite the frenzy of foreclosure sales, banks are foreclosing on homes faster than they can sell them, according to Peter Hong’s front-page story in today’s L.A. Times:
So many foreclosed homes are for sale in Southern California that these distressed properties will soon dominate the market, forcing prices down even further.
About half the homes sold in the region in August had been repossessed, according to figures released Wednesday by the real estate tracking service MDA DataQuick, driving prices down 34% over the previous year to a median of $330,000. ... Regionwide, foreclosures climbed to 45.5% of sales in August, up from 10% a year ago. In hard-hit Riverside County, about two-thirds of previously owned houses sold last month were in foreclosure.
In L.A. and Orange counties, foreclosure sales make up a lower portion of overall sales -- roughly 33% in both counties.
MDA DataQuick reports that about 8,800 of the 19,366 homes sold in the region in August were in foreclosure; during the same period, according to Sean O’Toole of Foreclosure Radar, banks foreclosed on 12,900 homes in the region, effectively increasing the supply of bank-owned homes on the market.
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-- Peter Viles