Properties, including single family homes, condominiums and town homes, sold at an estimated annual pace of 5,167,255 in December, a less than 1% increase from the previous month and a 10% increase from December 2012.
Counter to the national trend, annualised sales volume declined from a year ago in 18 of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas and was down in the five states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Rhode Island and Oregon.
The national median sales price was $168,391 in December, virtually unchanged from November and up 2%from December 2012.
The median price of a distressed residential property that was in foreclosure or bank owned, was $108,494 in December, 38% below the median price of $174,401 for a non distressed residential property.
The report also shows that short sales and foreclosure related sales, including both sales to third party buyers at the public foreclosure auction and sales of bank owned properties, accounted for a combined 16.2% of residential sales in 2013, up from 14.5% of all sales in 2012 and up from 15.2% of all sales in 2011.
‘It may surprise some to see distressed sales rising in 2013 given that foreclosure starts dropped to a seven-year low for the year,’ said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
‘While short sales did trend lower in the second half of the year, there are still more than 1.2 million properties in the foreclosure process or bank owned, providing a sizable pool of inventory that the housing market is in the process of absorbing. Meanwhile, non distressed sellers have not listed their homes for sale in droves, helping to keep the distressed share of sales at a stubbornly high level,’ he explained.
The report also shows that sales of bank owned properties (REO) accounted for 9.3% of all sales in December, up from 8.7% in the previous month and 9.2% in December 2012.
States with the highest percentage of REO sales in December were Nevada at 18.9%, Michigan at 18.4%, Ohio at 17.8%, Arizona at 15.7% and Illinois at 14.%. More than 436,000 REO properties sold in 2013, accounting for 9.3% of all sales, up from 9.1% in 2012 and up from 8.7% in 2011.
Short sales, where the sale price is below the total amount of outstanding loans secured by the property, accounted for 5.7% of sales in December, up from 5.1% in November but down from 6.7% in December 2012.
States with the highest percentage of short sales in December were Nevada at 15.3%, Florida at 14.4%, Illinois at 9%, Maryland at 8.2%, New Jersey at 7.9% and Michigan at 7.2%. More than 256,000 short sales occurred in 2013, accounting for 5.8% of all sales, up from 4.9% of all sales in 2012 but down from 6% of all sales in 2011.
Sales to third party investors at the foreclosure auction accounted for 1.2% of all sales in December, up from 1.1% in November and up from 0.8% in December 2012.
Major metros where third party foreclosure auction sales accounted for at least 2.5% of all residential sales included Atlanta at 4.7%, Orlando and Miami at 3.%, Tampa at 3.4%, and Columbia in South Carolina, Las Vegas and Charleston all at 2.8%.
All cash purchases accounted for 42.1% of all sales in December, up from a revised 38.1% in November, and up from 18% in December 2012. States where all cash sales accounted for more than 50% of all sales in December included Florida at 62.5%, Wisconsin at 59.8%, Alabama at 55.7%, and South Carolina and Georgia both at 51.3%.
For all of 2013, 29.1% of residential sales were all cash purchases, but the percentage trended substantially higher in the second half of the year. The 29.1% in 2013 was up from 19.4% in 2012 and 20.6% in 2011.
