by Calculated Risk on 11/10/2014 06:19:00 PM

About 5 years ago I started following the Sacramento market to look for changes in the mix of houses sold (equity, REOs, and short sales).  For a few years, not much changed. But over the last 2+ years we've seen some significant changes with a dramatic shift from foreclosures (REO: lender Real Estate Owned) to short sales, and the percentage of total distressed sales declining sharply.

This data suggests healing in the Sacramento market and other distressed markets are showing similar improvement.  Note: The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® started breaking out REOs in May 2008, and short sales in June 2009.

In October 2014, 12.1% of all resales were distressed sales. This was up from 11.1% last month, and down from 16.7% in October 2013.  The slight increase was probably seasonal.

The percentage of REOs was at 6.1%, and the percentage of short sales was 6.0%.

Here are the statistics for October.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the percent of REO sales, short sales and conventional sales.

There has been a sharp increase in conventional sales that started in 2012 (blue) as the percentage of distressed sales declined sharply.

Active Listing Inventory for single family homes increased 29.1% year-over-year (YoY) in October.  This was the smallest YoY increase in June 2013, and the YoY increases have been trending down after peaking at close to 100%.

Cash buyers accounted for 20.6% of all sales, down from 23.9% in October 2013 (frequently investors).  This has been trending down, and it appears investors are becoming much less of a factor in Sacramento.

Total sales were down 0.8% from October 2013, and conventional equity sales were up 4.6% compared to the same month last year.

Summary: Distressed sales down sharply, cash buyers are down significantly, and inventory up significantly (but increases slowing).   This is what we'd expect to see in a healing market.  As I've noted before, we are seeing a similar pattern in other distressed areas.