It’s something we’ve known here at Team Reba for quite some time as we’ve watched the real estate market turn from it’s highs in 2006 and 2007 to the new reality of unemployment (and under-employment) and its affect on housing, but RealtyTrac has put out an article looking at the national view, there is a good US map showing rates of distressed properties.
Nationally the numbers are showing around 25% but since real estate truly is affected locally, we’ve been seeing anywhere from 25-60% of sales affected by distressed sales, depending on which town in Puget Sound you’re asking about. These distressed properties are defined as in default (payments missed) or pre-foreclosure (notice of default filed), in foreclosure (notice of trustee sale filed) and bank owned properties (aka REO). The folks at DSNews online have written a good article providing an analysis of the data.
