Report: US Foreclosure Sales Down 22% Over Last Year

According to RealtyTrac.com, which bills itself as the "leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties and real estate data", a total of 190,121 US properties that were either bank-owned or in some stage of foreclosure were sold during the first quarter of 2013. This is down 18% from Q4 2012 and 22% from Q1 2012.

According to RealtyTrac, 21% of all US residential sales during the first quarter involved homes that were in some stage of the foreclosure process. To put this into some perspective, 45% of all US residential sales in the first quarter of 2009 involved homes that were in some stage of foreclosure.

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Some more interesting data from the report:

-the states with the largest percentage of foreclosure-related sales in the first quarter of 2013 were Georgia, Illinois and California

-the average sale price for a foreclosed property was up 3% over the year before

-San Jose, Dayton, Phoenix and Las Vegas posted the biggest increases in the average price of their foreclosure-related sales

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This is another piece of data that signals that the US real estate market is finally starting to move off of its lows. The question, as we've asked before, is how long will this move last?

Source: RealtyTrac.com - US Foreclosure Sales in First Quarter Down 22 Percent From Year Ago, Account For One in Five Residential Sales

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