by Calculated Risk on 6/12/2014 04:03:00 PM

From DataQuick: Bay Area Home Sales Constrained by Supply; Prices Continue to Rise

A total of 7,898 new and resale houses and condos sold in the nine-county Bay Area last month. That was up 4.5 percent from 7,555 in April and down 7.5 percent from 8,541 in May last year, according to San Diego-based DataQuick.

Bay Area sales almost always increase from April to May. On average they have risen about 7.2 percent between those two months since 1988, when DataQuick’s statistics begin. ...

Last month foreclosure resales – homes that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months – accounted for 3.1 percent of all resales, down from a revised 3.6 percent the month before, and down from 6.5 percent a year ago. Foreclosure resales peaked at 52.0 percent in February 2009. The monthly average for foreclosure resales over the past 17 years is 9.8 percent.

Short sales – transactions where the sale price fell short of what was owed on the property – made up an estimated 4.7 percent of Bay Area resales last month. That was up from an estimated 4.2 percent in April and down from 10.4 percent a year earlier.

Last month absentee buyers – mostly investors – purchased 20.5 percent of all Bay Area homes. That was up a hair from April’s revised 20.4 percent and down from 22.4 percent for May a year ago.
emphasis added

A few key year-over-year trends: 1) declining distressed sales, 2) generally declining investor buying, 3) declining total sales, but 4) some increase in non-distressed sales. Though total sales were down 7.5% year-over-year, the percent of non-distressed sales was up 3%.  There were 7,898 total sales this year in May, and 7.8% were distressed.  In May 2013, there were 8,541 total sales, and 16.9% were distressed.