by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2010 12:13:00 PM

The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® is breaking out monthly resales by equity sales (conventional resales), and distressed sales (Short sales and REO sales), and I'm following this series as an example to see mix changes in a distressed area.

Starting last month First American Corelogic has started releasing a distressed sales report - and that shows the trend in short sales and REOs nationally.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

Here is the March data.

The Sacramento Association started breaking out REO sales in 2008, but they have only broken out short sales since June 2009. Almost 65% of all resales (single family homes and condos) were distressed sales in March.

Note: This data is not seasonally adjusted, although the increase in sales in March is slightly above normal because of the tax credit.

The second graph shows the percent of REO, short sales and conventional sales. The percent of short sales is near the high set in December. This will probably continue to increase this year (2010 is the year of the short sale!).

Also total sales in March were off 3.4% compared to March 2009; the tenth month in a row with declining YoY sales - even with a surge from tax credit buying this year!

On financing, nearly 60 percent were either all cash (27.1%) or FHA loans (31.5%), suggesting most of the activity in distressed former bubble areas like Sacramento is first time home buyers using government-insured FHA loans, and investors paying cash.