by Calculated Risk on 10/08/2007 10:39:00 AM

Jon Lansner writes at the O.C. Register: Distressed properties 12% of O.C. housing supply

Market watcher Steve Thomas at Re/Max Real Estate Services in Aliso Viejo notes the impact of distressed properties in his biweekly summary of housing supply ...

After finding a new way to search for short sales and foreclosures on the market and in escrow, the new findings are disconcerting. Currently, short sales and foreclosures in Orange County account for 12% of the active inventory and 15% of all escrows opened within the prior month.

Thomas also calculates “market time,” a benchmark of how many months it theoretically takes to sell all the inventory in the local MLS for-sale listings at the current pace of pending deals being made. This index shows the inventory-to-selling ratio continuing to erode. By this Thomas logic, it would take 15.17 months for buyers to gobble up all homes listed for sale at the current pace of deals vs. 14.73 months two weeks earlier and vs. 7.10 months a year ago.